Th[e ACADeNjY S6RieS OF 
eNGLISH CLASSICS 



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Addison 
De Coverley Papers 



EDITED BY 

S. THURBER 



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ALLYN AND BACON 






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Cfje ^catiemg Series of Engltsf) Classits 



ADDISON 



De Coverley Papers 



EDITED BY 

SAMUEL THURBER 



Boston 

ALLYN AND BACON 









Copyright, 1892, 
By SAMUEL THURBER. 



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XorbjootJ ^r£S8 : 

J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 

Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



PUBLISHEES' NOTE. 

This book contains portions of a larger volume pre= 
pared by the same editor. The page numbers have not 
been changed, and the breaks in the paging occur where 
matter of the larger volume has been omitted. 

All the works in The Academy Series of English Classics 
are given without abbreviation. 



THE DE COVERLET PAPERS. 

Spectator No. I06. The Spectator's observations at Sir Roger's 

country-house. 

Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir 
Eoger de Coverley to pass away a month, with him in the 
country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled 
with him for some time at his country-house, where I intend 
to form several of my ensuing speculations. Sir Eoger, who 
is very well acquainted with my humor, lets me rise and go 
to bed when I please ; dine at his own table or in my chamber 
as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me 
be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see 
him, he only shows me at a distance : as I have been walk- 
ing in his fields I have observed them stealing a sight of me 
over an hedge, and have heard the knight desiring them not 
to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at. 

I am the more at ease in Sir Eoger's family, because it 
consists of sober and staid persons : for as the knight is the 
best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants ; 
and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never 
care for leaving him ; by this means his domestics are all in 
years, and grown old with their master. You would take 
his Valet-de-chambre for his brother, his butler is grey- 
headed, his groom is one of the gravest men that I have 
ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy-coun- 
sellor. You see the goodness of the master even in the old 
house-dog, and in a grey pad that is kept in the stable with 
great care and tenderness out of regard to his past services, 
though he has been useless for several years. ^ 

17 



18 Select Essays of Addison. 

I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the 
joy that appeared in the countenance of these ancient do- 
mestics upon my friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some 
of them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their 
old master ; every one of them pressed forward to do some- 
thing for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not em- 
ployed. At the same time the good old knight, with a 
mixture of the father and the master of the family, tem- 
pered the inquiries after his own affairs with several kind 
questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good 
nature engages everybody to him, so that when he is pleas- 
ant upon any of them, all his family are in good humor, 
and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself 
with : on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity 
of old age, it is easy for a stander by to observe a secret 
concern in the looks of all his servants. 

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care 
of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as 
the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of 
pleasing me, because they have often heard their master 
talk of me as of his particular friend. 

My chief companion, when Sir Eoger is diverting him- 
self in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who 
is ever with Sir Eoger, and has lived at his house in the 
nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman 
is a person of good sense and some learning, of a very regu- 
lar life and obliging conversation: he heartily loves Sir 
Eoger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight's 
esteem, so that he lives in the family rather as a relation 
than a dependent. 

I have observed in several of my papers, that my friend 
Sir Eoger, amidst all his good qualities, is something of an 
humorist; and that his virtues, as well as imperfections, 
are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance, which 
makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from 



The Spectator at Sir Roger's, 19 

those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally 
very innocent in itself, so it renders his conversation highly 
agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of 
sense and virtue would appear in their common or ordinary 
colors. As I was walking with him last night, he asked 
me how I liked the good man whom I have just now men- 
tioned; and, without staying for my answer, told me that 
he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at 
his own table; for which reason he desired a particular 
friend of his at the university to find him out a clergyman 
rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, 
a clear voice, a sociable temper: and, if possible, a man 
that understood a little of back-gammon. ^^My friend,'^ 
says Sir Eoger, " found me out this gentleman, who, besides 
the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good 
scholar, though he does not show it : I have given him the 
parsonage of the parish; and because I know his value, 
have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If he out- 
lives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem 
than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me 
thirty years ; and though he does not know I have taken 
notice of it, has never in all that time asked anything of 
me for himself, though he is every day soliciting me for 
something in behalf of one or other of my tenants, his par- 
ishioners. There has not been a law-suit in the parish 
since he has lived among them ; if any dispute arises they 
apply themselves to him for the decision ; if they do not 
acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never happened 
above once or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his 
first settling with me, I made him a present of all the good 
sermons which have been printed in English, and only 
begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one 
of them in the pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them 
into such a series, that they follow one another naturally, 
and make a continued system of practical divinity.^' 



20 Select Essays of Addison. 

As Sir Eoger was going on in his story, the gentle- 
man we were talking of came up to us ; and upon the 
knight's asking him who preached to-morrow ( for it was 
Saturday night ) told us, the Bishop of St. Asaph in the 
morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then showed 
us his list of preachers for the whole year, where I saw 
with a great deal of pleasure archbishop Tillotson, bishop 
Saunderson, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Calamy, with several living 
authors who have published discourses of practical divinity. 
I no sooner saw this venerable man in the pulpit, but I very 
much approved of my friend's insisting upon the quali- 
fications of a good aspect and a clear voice ; for I was so 
charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as 
well as with the discourses he pronounced, that I think I 
never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A sermon 
repeated after this manner is like the composition of a poet 
in the mouth of a graceful actor. 

I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy 
would follow this example ; and instead of wasting their 
spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would 
endeavor after a handsome elocution, and all those other 
talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by 
greater masters. This would not only be more easy to 
themselves, but more edifying to the people. 



Spectator No. 107. The Coverley household: Sir Roger's treat- 
7nent of his servants. 

The reception, manner of attendance, undisturbed free- 
dom, and quiet, which I meet with here in the country, 
has confirmed me in the opinion I always had, that the 
general corruption of manners in servants is owing to 
the conduct of masters. The aspect of every one in the 
family carries so much satisfaction that it appears he 



Sh' Roger and His Dependents, 21 

knows the happy lot which has befallen him in being a 
member of it. There is one particular which I have 
seldom seen but at Sir Soger's ; it is usual in all other 
places, that servants fly from the parts of the house through 
which their master is passing : on the contrary, here they 
industriously place themselves in his way ; and it is on 
both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when the 
servants appear without calling. This proceeds from the 
humane and equal temper of the man of the house, who 
also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate with 
such economy as ever to be much beforehand. This makes 
his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent 
peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent 
orders to those about him. Thus respect and love go 
together, and a certain cheerfulness in performance of their 
duty is the particular distinction of the lower part of this 
family. When a servant is called before his master, he 
does not come with an expectation to hear himself rated for 
some trivial fault, threatened to be stripped, or used with 
any other unbecoming language, which mean masters often 
give to worthy servants ; but it is often to know what road 
he took that he came so readily back according to order ; 
whether he passed by such a ground ; if the old man who 
rents it is in good health ; or whether he gave Sir Eoger's 
love to him, or the like. 

One might, on this occasion, recount the sense that great 
persons in all ages have had of the merit of their depend- 
ents, and the heroic services which men have done their 
masters in the extremity of their fortunes ; and shown to 
their undone patrons that fortune was all the difference 
between them ; but as I design this my speculation only as 
a gentle admonition to thankless masters, I shall not go out 
of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general 
observation, that I never saw, but in Sir Eoger's family, and 
one or two more, good servants treated as they ought to be. 



22 Select Essays of Addison, 

Sir Eoger's kindness extends to their children's children, 
and this very morning he sent his coachman's grandson to 
prentice. I shall conclude this paper with an account of a 
picture in his gallery, where there are many which will 
deserve my future observation. 

At the very upper end of this handsome structure I saw 
the portraiture of two young men standing in a river, the 
one naked, the other in a livery. The person supported 
seemed half dead, but still so much alive as to show in his 
face exquisite joy and love towards the other. I thought 
the fainting figure resembled my friend Sir Eoger; and 
looking at the butler, who stood by me, for an account of it, 
he informed me that the person in the livery was a servant 
of Sir Eoger's, who stood on the shore while his master 
was swimming, and observing him taken with some sudden 
illness, and sink under water, jumped in and saved him. 
He told me Sir Eoger took off the dress he was in as soon 
as he came home, and by a great bounty at that time, fol- 
lowed by his favor ever since, had made him master of that 
pretty seat which we saw at a distance as we came to this 
house. I remembered indeed Sir Eoger said there lived a 
very worthy gentleman, to whom he was highly obliged, 
without mentioning anything further. Upon my looking a 
little dissatisfied at some part of the picture, my attendant 
informed me that it was against Sir Eoger's will, and at the 
earnest request of the gentleman himself, that he was drawn 
in the habit in which he had saved his master. — Steele, 



Spectator No. I08. The Spectator describes Will Wirnhle, whom 
he meets at Sir Roger's. 

As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Eoger be- 
fore his house, a country fellow brought him a huge fish, 
which, he told him, Mr. William Wimble had caught that 



Will Wimble. 23 

very morning ; and that lie presented it, with his service to 
him, and intended to come and dine with him. At the same 
time he delivered a letter, which my friend read to me as 
soon as the messenger left him. 

Sir Koger, — I desire you to accept of a jack, which is the best 
I have caught this season. I intend to come and stay with you a 
week, and see how the perch bite in the Black River. I observed with 
some concern, the last time I saw you upon the bowhng-green, that 
your whip wanted a lash to it ; I will bring half a dozen with me 
that I twisted last week, which I hope will serve you all the time you 
are in the country. I have not been out of the saddle for six days 
last past, having been at Eton with Sir John's eldest son. He takes 
to his learning hugely. 

I am, sir, your humble servant. 

Will Wimble. 

This extraordinary letter, and message that accompanied 
it, made me very curious to know the character and quality 
of the gentleman who sent them ; which I found to be as 
follows. Will Wimble is younger brother to a baronet, and 
descended of the ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now 
between forty and fifty ; but being bred to no business and 
born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder brother 
as superintendent of his game. He hunts a pack of dogs 
better than any man in the country, and is very famous for 
finding out a hare. He is extremely well versed in all the 
little handicrafts of an idle man : he makes a may-fly to a 
miracle, and furnishes the whole country with angle-rods. 
As he is a good-natured officious fellow, and very much es- 
teemed upon account of his family, he is a welcome guest 
at every house, and keeps up a good correspondence among 
all the gentlemen about him. He carries a tulip-root in his 
pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between 
a couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite sides 
of the county. Will is a particular favorite of all the young 
heirS; whom he frequently obliges with a net that he has 



24 Select .Essays of Addison, 

weaved, or a setting-dog that he has made himself. He now 
and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to 
their mothers or sisters ; and raises a great deal of mirth 
among them, by inquiring as often as he meets them how 
they wear. These gentleman-like manufactures and obliging 
little humors make Will the darling of the country. 

Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him, when 
we saw him make up to us with two or three hazel-twigs in 
his hand that he had cut in Sir Roger's woods, as he came 
through them, in his way to the house. I was very much 
pleased to observe on one side the hearty and sincere wel- 
come with which Sir Roger received him, and on the other, 
the secret joy which his guest discovered at sight of the 
good old Knight. After the first salutes were over. Will 
desired Sir Roger to lend him one of his servants to carry 
a set of shuttlecocks he had with him in a little box to a 
lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it seems he had 
promised such a present for above this half year. Sir Roger's 
back was no sooner turned but honest Will began to tell me 
of a large cock-pheasant that he had sprung in one of the 
neighboring woods, with two or three other adventures of 
the same nature. Odd and uncommon characters are the 
game that I look for and most delight in ; for which reason 
I was as much pleased with the novelty of the person that 
talked to me, as he could be for his life with the springing 
of a pheasant, and therefore listened to him with more than 
ordinary attention. 

In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner, 
where the gentleman I have been speaking of had the pleas- 
ure of seeing the huge jack he had caught served up for the 
first dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon our sitting 
down to it he gave us a long account how he had hooked it, 
played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the 
bank, with several other particulars that lasted all the first 
course. A dish of wild fowl that came afterwards furnished 



Will Wimble. 25 

conversation for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with 
a late invention of Will's for improving the quail-pipe. 

Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was 
secretly touched with compassion towards the honest gen- 
tleman that had dined with us, and could not but consider, 
with a great deal of concern, how so good an heart and such 
busy hands were wholly employed in trifles ; that so much 
humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so 
much industry so little advantageous to himself. The same 
temper of mind and application to affairs might have rec- 
ommended him to the public esteem, and have raised his 
fortune in another station of life. What good to his coun- 
try or himself might not a trader or a merchant have done 
with such useful though ordinary qualifications ? 

Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother of 
a great family, who had rather see their children starve like 
gentlemen than thrive in a trade or profession that is be- 
neath their quality. This humor fills several parts of 
Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a 
trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, though un- 
capable of any liberal art or profession, may be placed in 
such a way of life as may perhaps enable them to vie with 
the best of their family. Accordingly, we find several citi- 
zens that were launched into the world with narrow for- 
tunes, rising by an honest industry to greater estates than 
those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but Will 
was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physic; and that 
finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him 
up at length to his own inventions. \ But certainly, however 
improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, 
he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade 
and commerce. \ As I think this is a point which cannot be 
too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare 
what I have here written with what I have said in my 
twenty-first speculation. 



26 Select Essays of Addison. 

Spectator No. 109. Sir Roger's account of his ancestors. 

I was this morning walking in the gallery^ when Sir Koger 
entered at the end opposite to me, and, advancing towards 
me, said he was glad to meet me among his relations the 
De Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conversation of so much 
good company, who were as silent as myself. I knew he 
alluded to the pictures ; and, as he is a gentleman who does 
not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I ex- 
pected he would give me some account of them. TVe were 
now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the Knight 
faced towards one of the pictures, and. as we stood before 
it, he entered into the matter, after his blunt way of saying 
things as they occur to his imagination without regular in- 
troduction or care to preserve the appearance of chain of 
thought. 

" It is,'^ said h^ ^' worth while to consider the force of 
dress, and how the persons of one age differ from those of 
another merely by that only. One may observe, also, that 
the general fashion of one age has been followed by one 
particular set of people in another, and by them preserved 
from one generation to another. Thus the vast jetting coat 
and small bonnet, which was the habit in Harry the Seventh's 
time, is kept on in the yeoman of the guard ; not without a 
good and politic view, because they look a foot taller, and 
a foot and a half broader : besides that the cap leaves the 
face expanded, and consequently more terrible, and fitter to 
stand at the entrances of palaces. 

'' This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this 
manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine were 
he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that won a prize 
in the Tilt Yard (which is now a common street before 
Whitehall). You see the broken lance that lies there by 
his right foot : he shivered that lance of his adversary all 
to pieces ; and, bearing himself, look you, sir, in this man- 



The Coverley Portrait Giallery. 27 

ner, at the same time he came within the target of the 
gentleman who rode against him, and taking him with 
incredible force before him on the pommel of his saddle, 
he in that manner rid the tournament over, with an air that 
showed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists 
than expose his enemy : however, it appeared he knew how 
to make use of a*victory, and, with a gentle trot, he marched 
up to a gallery where their mistress sat (for they were ri- 
vals) and let him down with laudable courtesy and pardon- 
able insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where 
the coffee-house is now. 

^^You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a 
military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he 
played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman a,t court : 
you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The 
action at the Tilt Yard you may be sure won the fair lady, 
who was a maid of honor, and the greatest beauty of her 
time ; here she stands, the next picture. You see, sir, my 
great-great-great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned 
petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the waist : 
my grandmother appears as if she stood in a large drum, 
whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart. 
For all this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent 
country wife, she brought ten children, and, when I show 
you the library, you shall see, in her own hand (allowing 
for the difference of the language), the best receipt now in 
England both for a hasty-pudding and a white-pot. 
^ ^^If you please to fall back a little, because 'tis necessary 
to look at the three next pictures at one view ; these are 
three sisters. She on the right hand, who is so very beau- 
tiful, died a maid; the next to her, still handsomer, had 
the same fate, against her will ; this homely thing in the 
middle had both their portions added to her own, and was 
stolen by a neighboring gentleman, a man of stratagem and 
resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, 



28 Select Essays of Addison, 

and knocked down two deer-stealers in carrying her off. 
Misfortunes happen in all families. The theft of this 
romp and so much money, was no great matter to our es- 
tate. ■ But the next heir that possessed it was this soft 
gentleman, whom you see there : observe the small buttons, 
the little boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes, 
and, above all, the posture he is drawn in (which to be sure 
was his own choosing) ; you see he sits with one hand on 
a desk writing and looking as it were another way, like an 
easy writer, or a sonneteer. He was one of those that had 
too much wit to know how to live in the world : he was a 
man of no justice, but great good manners ; he ruined every- 
body that had anything to do with him, but never said a 
rude thing in his life ; the most indolent person in the 
world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his es- 
tate with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before 
a lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the 
first that made love by squeezing the hand. He left the 
estate with ten thousand pounds debt upon it : but, how- 
ever, by all hands I have been informed that he was every 
way the finest gentleman in the world.^' 

Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in the 
following manner. " This man'' (pointing to him I looked 
at) " I take to be the honor of our house, Sir Humphrey de 
Coverley ; he was in his dealings as punctual as a trades- 
man, and as generous as a gentleman. He would have 
thought himself as much undone by breaking his word, as 
if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his 
country as knight of this shire to his dying day. He found 
it no easy matter to maintain an integrity in his words and 
actions, even in things that regarded the offices which were 
incumbent upon him, in the care of his own affairs and re- 
lations of life, and therefore dreaded (though he had great 
talents) to go into employments of state, where he must be 
exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and 



Haunted Souses. 29 

great ability were the distinguishing parts of his character ; 
the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction 
of the former, and used frequently to lament that great and 
good had not the same signification. He was an excellent 
husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree 
of wealth : all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many 
years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was at- 
tained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a 
decent old age spent the life and fortune which was super- 
fluous to himself in the service of his friends and neigh- 
bors.'^ 

Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended the 
discourse of this gentleman by telling me, as we followed 
the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and 
narrowly escaped being killed in the Civil Wars ; ^^ For," 
said he, "he was sent .out of the field upon a private mes- 
sage the day before the battle of Worcester." 

The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within 
a day of danger, with other matters above mentioned, 
mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was 
more delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity. — 
Steele. 



Spectator No. no. Ghosts and haunted houses. 

At a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the 
ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms ; 
which are shot up so very high, that when one passes under 
them, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them, 
seem to be cawing in another region. I am very much de- 
lighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind 
of natural prayer to that Being who supplies the wants of 
his whole creation, and who, in the beautiful language of 
the Psalms, feedeth the young ravens that call upon him. 



30 Select Essays of Addison. 

I like this retirement the better^ because of an ill report it 
lies under of being haunted ; for which reason, as I have 
been told in the family, no living creature ever walks in it 
besides the chaplain. My good friend the butler desired 
me, with a very grave face, not to venture myself in it after 
sunset, for that one of the footmen had been almost frighted 
out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape 
of a black horse without an head ; to which he added, that 
about a month ago, one of the maids coming home late that 
way, with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling 
among the bushes, that she let it fall. 

I was taking a walk in this place last night between the 
hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the 
most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to appear in. 
The ruins of the abbey are scattered up and down on every 
side, and half covered with ivy and elder bushes, the har- 
bors of several solitary birds, which seldom make their 
appearance till the dusk of the evening. The place was 
formerly a churchyard, and has still several marks in it of 
graves and burying-places. There is such an echo among 
the old ruins and vaults, that if you stamp but a little 
louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. At the 
same time the walk of elms, with the croaking of the ravens, 
which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, 
looks exceeding solemn and venerable. These objects natu- 
rally raise seriousness and attention ; and when night height- 
ens the awfulness of the place, and pours out her supernum- 
erary horrors upon everything in it, I do not at all wonder 
that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions. 

Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the association of ideas, has 
very curious remarks, to show how, by the prejudice of ed- 
ucation, one idea often introduces into the mind a whole set 
that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of 
things. Among several examples of this kind, he produces 
the following instance : — 



Sunday in the Qountry. 31 

The ideas of goblins and sprights have really no more to do with 
darkness than light ; yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on 
the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall 
never be able to separate them again so long as he lives ; but darkness 
shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall 
be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other. 

As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the 
evening conspired with so many other occasions of terror, I 
observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagina- 
tion that was apt to startle might easily have construed into 
a black horse without an head ; and I daresay the poor foot- 
man lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion. 

My friend Sir Eoger has often told me, with a good deal 
of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he found 
three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best 
room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that 
means was locked up ; that noises had been heard in his 
long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it 
after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of his 
chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the 
family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it ; and 
that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half 
the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, 
or a daughter had died. The knight seeing his habitation 
reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner 
shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother, 
ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised 
by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, 
and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long 
reigned in the family. 



Spectator No. 112, Sunday in the country : Sir Roger at church* 

I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and 
think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human 



32 Select Essays of Addison. 

institution, it would be the best method that could have 
been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. 
It is certain the country people would soon degenerate into 
a kind of savages and barbarians, were there not such fre- 
quent returns of a stated time in which the whole village 
meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest 
habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent sub- 
jects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together 
in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away 
the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their 
minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the se-xes 
upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting 
all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye 
of the village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as 
much in the churchyard, as a citizen does upon the Change, 
the whole parish politics being generally discussed in that 
place either after sermon or before the bell rings. 

My friend Sir Eoger, being a good churchman, has beauti- 
fied the inside of his church with several texts of his own 
choosing; he has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, 
and railed in the communion table at his own expense. He 
has often told me, that at his coming to his estate he found 
his parishioners very irregular ; and that in order to make 
them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of 
them a hassock and a common-prayer book : and at the same 
time employed an itinerant singing master, who goes about 
the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the 
tunes of the psalms ; upon which they now very much value 
themselves, and indeed outdo most of the country churches 
that I have ever heard. 

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he 
keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to 
sleep in it besides himself ; for if by chance he has been 
surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out 
of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any- 



Sunday in the Country. 3S 

body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his 
servants to them. Several other of the old knight's partic- 
ularities break out upon these occasions : sometimes he will 
be lengthening out a verse in the singing-psalms, half a 
minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it ; 
sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his devo- 
tion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same 
prayer ; and sometimes stands up when everybody else is 
upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of 
his tenants are missing. 

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, 
in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews 
to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. 
This John Matthews it seems is remarkable for being an 
idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his 
diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted in 
that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstan- 
ces of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are 
not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behavior ; 
besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his 
character makes his friends observe these little singularities 
as foils that rather set off than blemish his good qualities. 

As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes to 
stir till Sir Eoger is gone out of the church. The knight 
walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double 
row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side ; 
and every now and then inquires how such an one's wife, or 
mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church ; 
which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that 
is absent. 

The chaplain has often told me, that upon a catechising 
day, when Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that an- 
swers well, he has ordered a \)ible to be given him next day 
for his encouragement ; and sometimes accompanies it with 
a flitch of bacon for his mother. Sir Roger has likewise 



34 Select Essays of Addison. 

added five pounds a year to the clerk's place ; and that he 
may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect 
in the church service, has promised, upon the death of the 
present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according 
bo merit. 

The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chap- 
lain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the 
more remarkable, because the very next village is famous 
tor the differences and contentions that rise between the 
parson and the 'squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. 
The parson is always preaching at the 'squire, and the 
'squire to be revenged on the parson never comes to church. 
The 'squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-steal- 
ers ; while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the 
dignity of his order, and insinuates to them in almost every 
sermon that he is a better man than his patron. In short 
matters are come to such an extremity, that the 'squire has 
not said his prayers either in public or private this half 
year ; and that the parson threatens him, if he does not 
mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole 
congregation. 

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, 
are very fatal to the ordinary people ; who are so used to be 
dazzled with riches, that they pay as much deference to the 
understanding of a man of an estate, as of a man of learn- 
ing : and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how 
important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when 
they know there are several men of five hundred a year who 
do not believe it. 



Spectator No. 113. Sir Roger in love. 

In my first description of the company in which I pass 
most of my time it may be remembered that I mentioned 
a great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with 



Sir Roger in Love, 35 

in his youth : which was no less than a disappointment 
in love. It happened this evening that we fell into a very 
pleasing walk at a distance from his house : as soon as 
we came into it, " It is, ^^ quoth the good old man, looking 
round him with a smile, ^^very hard, that any part of my 
land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as 
the perverse Widow did ; and yet I am sure I could not see 
a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I 
should reflect upon her and her severity. She has certainly 
the finest hand of any woman in the world. You are to 
know this was the place wherein I used to muse upon her ; 
and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same 
tender sentiments revive in my mind as if I had actually 
walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. 
I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark 
of several of these trees ; so unhappy is the condition of 
men in love to attempt the removing of their passion by 
the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She 
has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. ^' 

Here followed a profound silence ; and I was not dis- 
pleased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a 
discourse which I had ever before taken notice he industri- 
ously avoided. After a very long pause he entered upon 
an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an 
air which I thought raised my idea of him above what 
I had ever had before ; and gave me the picture of that 
cheerful mind of his, before it received that stroke which 
has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went 
on as follows : — 

'' I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and re- 
solved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ances- 
tors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all 
the methods of hospitality and good neighborhood, for the 
sake of my fame, and in country sports and recreations, for 
the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year I was 



36 Select Essays of Addison, 

obliged to serve as sheriff of the county ; and in my ser- 
vants, officers, and whole equipage, indulged the pleasure of 
a young man (who did not think ill of his own person) in 
taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behav- 
ior to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what 
appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was 
very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music 
before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. 
I Can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind 
looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows 
as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But 
when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit 
sat in court, to hear the event of a cause concerning her 
dower. This commanding creature (who was born for the 
destruction of all who behold her) put on such a resigna- 
tion in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around 
the court, with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, 
and then recovered herself from one eye to another, till 
she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful 
in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, 
she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met 
it but I bowed like a great surprised booby ; and knowing 
her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a 
captivated calf as I was, ^Make way for the defendant's 
witnesses.' This sudden partiality made all the county 
immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to 
the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial, 
she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep atten- 
' tion to her business, took opportunities to have little billets 
handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty con- 
fusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much 
company, that not only T but the whole court was prejudiced 
in her favor ; and all that the next heir to her husband had to 
urge was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it 
came to her counsel to reply, there was not half so much 



Sir Roger in Love. 37 

said as every one besides in the court thought he could 

have urged to her advantage. You must understand, sir, 

this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures, 

that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge 

themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that 

she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from 

her slaves in town to those in the country, according to the 

seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, and far gone 

in the pleasures of friendship : she is always accompanied 

by a confidante, who is witness to her daily protestations 

against our sex, and consequently a bar to her first steps 

towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and x"^ 

declarations. 

" She is such a desperate scholar, that no country gentle- 
man can approach her without being a jest. As I was going 
to tell you, when I came to her house I was admitted to 
her presence with great civility ; at the same time she 
placed herself to be first seen by me in such an attitude, 
as I think you call the posture of a picture, that she discov- 
ered new charms, and I at last came towards her with such 
an awe as made me speechless. This she no sooner observed 
but she made her advantage of it, and began a discourse to 
me concerning love and honor, as they both are followed by 
pretenders, and the real votaries to them. When she dis- 
cussed these points in a discourse, which I verily believe , 
was as learned as the best philosopher in Europe could 
possibly make, she asked me whether she was so happy 
as to fall in with my sentiments on these important partic- 
ulars. Her confidante sat by her, and upon my being in 
the last confusion and silence, this malicious aid of hers 
turning to her says, ' I am very glad to observe Sir Eoger 
pauses upon this subject, and seems resolved to deliver all 
his sentiments upon the matter when he pleases to speak.' 
They both kept their countenances, and after I had sat half 
an hour meditating how to behave before such profound 



38 Select Essays of Addison. 

casuists, T rose up and took my leave. Chance has since 
that time thrown me very often in her way, and she as 
often has directed a discourse to me which I do not under- 
stand. This barbarity has kept me ever at a distance from 
the most beautiful object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus 
also she deals with all mankind, and you must make love 
to her, as you would conquer the sphinx, by posing her. 
But were she like other women, and that there were any 
talking to her, how constant must the pleasure of that man 

be, who could converse with a creature But, after all, 

you may be sure her heart is fixed on some one or other; 
and yet I have been credibly informed — but who can believe 
half that is said ? '' 

I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him 
towards the house, that we might be joined by some other 
company ; and am convinced that the Widow is the secret 
cause of all that inconsistency which appears in some parts 
of my friend's discourse ; though he has so much command 
of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to 
that passage of Martial, which one knows not how to 
render into English, Dum tacet lianc loquitur. — Steele. 



Spectator No. 115. Exercise the best means of preserving health: 
Sir Roger as a hunter. 

Bodily labor is of two kinds, either that which a man 
submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes 
for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes the 
name of labor for that of exercise, but differs only from 
ordinary labor as it rises from another motive. 

That we might not want inducements to engage us in such 
an exercise of the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so 
ordered, that nothing valuable can be procured without it. 
Not to mention riches and honor, even food and raiment are 



Hunting as an Zeroise. S9 

not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat 
of the brows. Providence furnishes materials, but expects 
that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must 
be labored before it gives its increase, and when it is forced 
into its several products, how many hands must they pass 
through before they are fit for use ? Manufactures, trade 
and agriculture, naturally employ more than nineteen parts 
of the species in twenty; and as for those who are not 
obliged to labor, by the condition in which they are born, 
they are more miserable than the rest of mankind, unless 
they indulge themselves in that voluntary labor which goes 
by the name of exercise. 

My friend Sir Koger has been an indefatigable man in bus- 
iness of this kind, and has hung several parts of his house 
with the trophies of his former labors. The walls of his 
great hall are covered with the horns of several kinds of 
deer that he has killed in the chase, which he thinks the 
most valuable furniture of his house, as they afford him fre- 
quent topics of discourse, and show that he has not been 
idle. At the lower end of the hall is a large otter's skin 
stuffed with hay, which his mother ordered to be hung up 
in that manner, and the knight looks upon it with great 
satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years old 
when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the 
hall is a kind of arsenal filled with guns of several sizes 
and inventions, with which the knight has made great 
havoc in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of 
pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks. His stable doors 
are patched with noses that belonged to foxes of the 
knight's own hunting down. Sir Eoger showed me one of 
them, that for distinction's sake has a brass nail struck 
through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, car- 
ried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace 
of horses, and lost above half his dogs. This the knight 
looks upon as one of the greatest exploits of his life. The 



40 Select Essays of Addison. 

perverse widow, whom I have given some accoimt of, was 
the death of several foxes ; for Sir Eoger has told me, that in 
the course of his amours he patched the western door of his 
stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure 
to pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow 
abated, and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting ; but a 
hare is not yet safe that sits within ten miles of his house. 
-^ There is no kind of exercise which I would so recommend 
to my readers of both sexes as this of riding, as there is 
none which so much conduces to health, and is every way 
accommodated to the body, according to the idea which I 
have given of it. For my own part, when I am in town, 
for want of these opportunities, I exercise myself an hour 
every morning upon a dumb bell that is placed in a corner 
of my room, and pleases me the more, because it does every- 
thing I require of it in the most profound silence. My 
landlady and her daughters are so well acquainted with my 
hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to 
disturb me whilst I am ringing. 

When I was some years younger than I am at present, I 
used to employ myself in a more laborious diversion, which 1 
learned from a Latin treatise of exercises, that is written with 
great erudition: it is there called the o-Kto/xaxict, or the fighting 
with a man's own shadow, and consists in the brandishing 
of two short sticks grasped in each hand, and loaden with 
plugs of lead at either end. Tj^is opens the chest, exercises 
the limbs, and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing with- 
out the blows. I could wish that several learned men 
would lay out that time which they employ in controversies 
and disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with 
their own shadows. It might conduce very much to evapo- 
rate the spleen, which makes them uneasy to the public 
as well as to themselves. 

To conclude, as I am a compound of soul and body, I con- 
sider myself as obliged to a double scheme of duties ; and 



The Spectator in the Hunting-field, 41 

think I have not fulfilled the business of the day, when I 
do not thus employ the one in labor and exercise, as well 
as the other in study and contemplation. 



Spectator No. Ii6. The Spectator accompanies Sir Roger to the 

hunting-field. 

Those who have searched into human nature observe that 
nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul, as that 
its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an 
active principle in him, that he will find out something to 
employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he 
is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under 
close confinement in the Bastile seven years ; during which 
time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about 
his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in 
different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often 
told his friends afterwards, that unless he had found out 
this piece of exercise, he verily believed he should have lost 
his senses. 

After what has been said, I need not inform my readers, 
that Sir Eoger, with whose character I hope they are at 
present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone 
through the whole course of those rural diversions which 
the country abounds in ; and which seem to be extremely 
well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe 
here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. I 
have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits : he has 
in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a 
season ; and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but 
of a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of 
the neighborhood always attended him on account of his 
remarkable enmity towards foxes ; having destroyed more 
of these vermin in one year than it was thought the whole 



42 Select Essays of Addison. 

country could have produced. Indeed, the knight does not 
scruple to own among his most intimate friends, that in 
order to establish his reputation this way, he has secretly 
sent for great numbers of them out of other counties, which 
he used to turn loose about the country by night, that he 
might the better signalize himself in their destruction the 
next day. His hunting horses were the finest and best 
managed in all these parts : his tenants are still full of the 
praises of a gray stone horse that unhappily staked himself 
several years since, and was buried with great solemnity in 
the orchard. 

Sir Eoger, being at present too old for fox-hunting, to 
keep himself in action, has disposed of his beagles and 
got a pack of stop-hounds. What these want in speed he 
endeavors to make amends for by the deepness of their 
mouths and the variety of their notes, which are suited 
in such manner to each other that the whole cry makes 
up a complete concert. He is so nice in this particular, 
that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine 
hound the other day, the knight returned it by the servant 
with a great many expressions of civility ; but desired him 
to tell his master that the dog he had sent was indeed a 
most excellent bass, but that at present he only wanted 
a counter-tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read 
Shakespeare I should certainly conclude he had taken the 
hint from Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream. 

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 
So flu'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 
With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 
Crook-kneed and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls ; 
Slow in pursuit, but match' d in mouths like bells, 
Each under each : a cry more tunable 
Was never holla' d to, nor cheer'd with horn. 

Sir Roger is so keen at this sport that he has been out 
almost every day since I came down; and upon the 



The Spectator in the Hunting-field, 43 

chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was pre- 
vailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. 
I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the 
general benevolence of all the neighborhood towards my 
friend. The farmer's sons thought themselves happy if 
they could open a gate for the good old Knight as he 
passed by ; which he generally requited with a nod or a 
smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles. 

After we had rid about a mile from home, we came upon 
a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. They had 
done so for some time, when, as I was at a little distance 
from the rest of the company, I saw a hare pop out from a 
small furze-brake almost under my horse's feet. I marked 
the way she took, which I endeavored to make the company 
sensible of by extending my arm ; but to no purpose, till 
Sir Eoger, who knows that none of my extraordinary mo- 
tions are insignificant, rode up to me, and asked me if puss 
was gone that way. Upon my answ^ering "Yes," he im- 
mediately called in the dogs and put them upon the scent. 
As they were going off, I heard one of the country -fellows 
muttering to his companion that 'twas a wonder they had 
not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's 
crying " Stole away ! " 

This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made me with- 
draw to a rising ground, from whence I could have the pic- 
ture of the whole chase, without the fatigue of keeping in 
with the hounds. The hare immediately threw them above 
a mile behind her : but I was pleased to find that instead 
of running straight forward, or in hunter's language, " fly- 
ing the country," as I was afraid she might have done, she 
wheeled about, and described a sort of circle round the hill 
where I had taken my station, in such a manner as gave me 
a very distinct view of the sport. I could see her first pass 
by, and the dogs some time afterwards unravelling the 
whole track she had made, and following her through all 



44 Select Essays of Addison, 

her doubles. I was at the same time delighted in observing 
that deference which the rest of the pack paid to each par- 
ticular hound, according to the character he had acquired 
amongst them : if they were at fault, and an old hound of 
reputation opened but once, he was immediately followed 
by the whole cry ; while a raw dog, or one who was a noted 
liar, might have yelped his heart out, without being taken 
notice of. 

The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, 
and been put up again as often, came still nearer to the 
place where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, 
and these were followed by the jolly Knight, who rode upon 
a white horse, encompassed by his tenants and servants, 
and cheering his hounds with all the gaiety of five-and- 
twenty. One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me 
that he was sure the chase was almost at an end, because 
the old dogs, which had hitherto lain behind, now headed 
the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare took a 
large field just under us, followed by the full cry " In view." 
I must confess the brightness of the weather, the cheerful- 
ness of every thing around me, the chiding of the hounds, 
which was returned upon us in a double echo from two 
neighboring hills, with the hollowing of the sportsmen, and 
the sounding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively 
pleasure, which I freely indulged because I was sure it was 
innocent. If I was under any concern, it was on the ac- 
count of the poor hare, that was now quite spent, and almost 
within the reach of her enemies ; when the huntsman, get- 
ting forward, threw down his pole before the dogs. They 
were now within eight yards of that game which they had 
been pursuing for almost as many hours ; yet on the signal 
before-mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and though 
they continued opening as much as before, durst not once 
attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir 
Eoger rode forward, and alighting, took up the hare in his 



Moll White, the Witch. 45 

arms ; which he soon delivered up to one of his servants 
with an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in 
his great orchard : where it seems he has several of these 
prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable 
captivity. I was highly pleased to see the discipline of the 
pack, and the good-nature of the Knight, who could not find 
in his heart to murder a creature that had given him so 
much diversion. 

For my own part I intend to hunt twice a week during 
my stay with Sir Koger ; and shall prescribe the moderate 
use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best 
kind of physic for mending a bad constitution, and preserv- 
ing a good one. 

I cannot do this better than in the following lines out 
of Mr. Dryden : — 

The first physicians by debauch were made ; 
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade. 
By chase our long-hved fathers earned their food ; 
' Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood ; 
But we their sons, a pamper' d race of men. 
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. 
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend : 
God never made His work for man to mend. — Budgell. 



Spectator No. 117. The Spectator discusses witchcraft: with Sir 
Roger he visits Moll White. 

There are some opinions in which a man should stand 
neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. 
Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to settle upon 
any determination, is absolutely necessary to a mind that is 
careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the argu- 
ments press equally on both sides in matters that are indif- 



46 Select Essays of Addison, 

ferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to 
neither. 

It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject 
of witchcraft. When I hear the relations that are made 
from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lap- 
land, from the East and West Indies, but from every par- 
ticular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear thinking that 
there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits, 
as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But 
when I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of 
the world abound most in these relations, and that the per- 
sons among us who are supposed to engage in such an in- 
fernal commerce are people of a weak understanding and a 
crazed imagination, and at the same time reflect upon the 
many impostures and delusions of this nature that have 
been detected in all ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief 
till I hear more certain accounts than any which have yet 
come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider the ques- 
tion, whether there are such persons in the world as those 
we call witches, my mind is divided between the two oppo- 
site opinions : or rather (to speak my thoughts freely) I 
believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing 
as witchcraft ; but at the same time can give no credit to 
any particular instance of it. 

I am engaged in this speculation by some occurrences 
that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader 
an account of at large. As I was walking with my friend 
Sir Eoger by the side of one of his woods, an old woman 
applied herself to me for charity. The Knight told me that 
this old woman had the reputation of a witch all over the 
country, that her lips were observed to be always in motion, 
and that there was not a switch about her house which her 
neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundreds 
of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found 
sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. 



Moll White, the Witch. 47 

If she made any mistake at church, and cried Amen in a 
wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was say- 
ing her prayers backwards. There was not a maid in the 
parish that would take a pin of her, though she would offer 
a bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll 
White, and has made the country ring with several imagi- 
nary exploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy maid 
does not make her butter come as soon as she should have 
it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse 
sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. 
If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the 
huntsman curses Moll White. "Nay" (says Sir Eoger), 
" I have known the master of the pack upon such an occa- 
sion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been 
out that morning.'' 

This account raised my curiosity so far, that I begged my 
friend Sir Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood 
in a solitary corner under the side of the wood. Upon our 
first entering Sir Eoger winked to me, and pointed at some- 
thing that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that 
way, I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he 
whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that 
sat in the chimney corner, which, as the old Knight told me, 
lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself ; for besides 
that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, 
the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice in her life, 
and to have played several pranks above the capacity of an 
ordinary cat. 

I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much 
wretchedness and disgrace, but at the same time could not 
forbear smiling to hear Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled 
about the old woman, advising her as a justice of peace to 
avoid all communication with the devil, and never to hurt 
any of her neighbors' cattle. We concluded our visit with 
a bounty, which was very acceptable. 



48 Select Essays of Addison. 

In our return home, Sir Eoger told me that old Moll had 
been often brought before him for making children spit pins, 
and giving maids the night-mare ; and that the country 
people would be tossing her into a pond and trying experi- 
ments with her every day, if it was not for him and his 
chaplain. 

I have since found upon inquiry that Sir Eoger was 
several times staggered with the reports that had been 
brought him concerning this old woman, and would fre- 
quently have bound her over to the county sessions had not 
his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the contrary. 

I have been the more particular in this account, because 
I hear there is scarce a village in England that has not a 
Moll White in it. When an old woman begins to dote, and 
grow chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a 
witch, and fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, 
imaginary distempers and terrifying dreams. In the mean 
time, the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so 
many evils begins to be frightened at herself, and sometimes 
confesses secret commerce and familiarities that her imagi- 
nation forms in a delirious old age. This frequently cuts 
off charity from the greatest objects of compassion, and 
inspires people with a malevolence towards those poor 
decrepit parts of our species, in whom human nature is 
defaced by infirmity and dotage. 



Spectator No. 122. Sir Roger at the assizes. 

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of 
his own heart; the next to escape the censures of the 
world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to 
be entirely neglected ; but otherwise there cannot be a 
greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see those 
approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses 



Sir Roger at the Assizes. 49 

of the public. A man is more sure of his conduct when the 
verdict which he passes upon his own behavior is thus war- 
ranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him. 

My worthy friend Sir Eoger is one of those who is not 
only at peace within himself but beloved and esteemed by 
all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his univer- 
sal benevolence to mankind in the returns of affection and 
goodwill which are paid him by every one that lives within 
his neighborhood. I lately met with two or three odd 
instances of that general respect which is shown to the good 
old Knight. He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself 
with him to the county assizes. As we were upon the road, 
Will Wimble joined a couple of plain men who rid before us, 
and conversed with them for some time ; during which my 
friend Sir Eoger acquainted me with their characters. 

"The first of them/' says he, "that has a spaniel by his 
side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds a year, an 
honest man. He is just within the Game Act, and qual- 
ified to kill a hare or a pheasant. He knocks down a din- 
ner with his gun twice or thrice a week ; and by that means 
lives much cheaper than those, who have not so good an 
estate as himself. He would be a good neighbor if he did 
not destroy so many partridges ; in short, he is a very sen- 
sible man, shoots flying, and has been several times foreman 
of the petty jury. 

" The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a 
fellow famous for taking the law of every body. There is 
not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued at 
a quarter sessions. The rogue had once the impudence to 
go to law with the Widow. His head is full of costs, dam- 
ages, and ejectments ; he plagued a couple of honest gentle- 
men so long for a trespass in breaking one of his hedges, till 
he was forced to sell the ground it enclosed to defray the 
charges of the prosecution. His father left him four-score 
pounds a year, but he has cast, and been cast so often, that 



50 Select Essays of Addison. 

he is not now worth thirty. I suppose he is going upon the 
old business of the willow tree/^ 

As Sir Eoger was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, 
Will Wimble and his two companions stopped short till we 
came up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir 
Eoger, Will told them that Mr. Touchy and he must appeal 
to him upon a dispute that arose between them. Will, it 
seems, had been giving his fellow travellers an account of 
his angling one day in such a hole ; when Tom Touchy, 
instead of hearing out his story, told him that Mr. Such-an- 
one, if he pleased, might take the law of him for fishing in 
that part of the river. My friend Sir Eoger heard them 
both, upon a round trot; and, after having paused some 
time, told them, with the air of a man who would not give 
his judgment rashly, that much might be said on both sides. 
They were neither of them dissatisfied with the Knight's 
determination, because neither of them found himself in the 
wrong by it. Upon which we made the best of our way to 
the assizes. 

The court was sat before Sir Eoger came; but notwith- 
standing all the justices had taken their places upon the 
bench, they made room for the old Knight at the head of 
them ; who, for his reputation in the country, took occasion 
to whisper in the judge's ear, that he was glad his lordship 
had met with so much good weather in his circuit. . I was 
listening to the proceeding of the court with much atten- 
tion, and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and 
solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public 
administration of our laws ; when, after about an hour's sit- 
ting, I observed, to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, 
that my friend Sir Eoger was getting up to speak. I was 
in some pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself 
of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and 
great intrepidity. 

Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and a general 



Si?' Roger at the Assizes. 51 

whisper ran among the country people that Sir Eoger was 
up. The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that 
I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it ; and I 
believe was not so much designed by the Knight himself to 
inform the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and 
keep up his credit in the country. 

I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the 
gentlemen of the country gathering about my old friend, 
and striving who should compliment him most ; at the same 
time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, 
not a little admiring his courage, that was not afraid to 
speak to the judge. 

In our return home we met with a very odd accident, 
which I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how desir- 
ous all who know Sir Eoger are of giving him marks of 
their esteem. When we were arrived upon the verge of his 
estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our 
horses. The man of the house had, it seems, been formerly 
a servant in the Knight's family ; and, to do honor to his 
old master, had some time since, unknown to Sir Eoger, put 
him up in a sign-post before the door ; so that the Knight's 
head had hung out upon the road about a week before he him- 
self knew anything of the matter. As soon as Sir Eoger was 
acquainted with it, finding that his servant's indiscretion 
proceeded wholly from affection and goodwill, he only told 
him that he had made him too high a compliment ; and 
when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added, 
with a more decisive look, that it was too great an honor for 
any man under a duke ; but told him at the same time that 
it might be altered with a very few touches, and that he 
himself would be at the charge of it. Accordingly they 
got a painter, by the Knight's directions, to add a pair of 
whiskers to the face, and by a little aggravation of the feat- 
ures to change it into the Saracen's Head. I should not 
have known this story had not the inn-keeper, upon Sir 



52 Select Essays of Addison. 

Eoger's alighting^ told liim in my hearing, that his honor's 
head was brought back last night with the alterations that 
he had ordered to be made in it. Upon this, my friend, 
with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above 
mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into the 
room. I could not forbear discovering greater expressions 
of mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this mon- 
strous face, under which, notwithstanding it was made 
to frown and stare in a most extraordinary manner, I could 
still discover a distant resemblance of my old friend. Sir 
Koger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me to tell him truly 
if I thought it possible for people to know him in that 
disguise. I at first kept my usual silence; but upon the 
Knight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not still 
more like himself than a Saracen, I composed my counte- 
nance in the best manner I could, and replied that much 
might be said on both sides. 

These several adventures, with the Knight's behavior in 
them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with in any 
of my travels. 



Spectator No. 125. Sir Roger tells a story of his boyhood, which 
leads the Spectator to discuss the evils of party- spirit. 

My worthy friend Sir Eoger, when we are talking of the 
malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that 
happened to him when he was a school-boy, which was at a 
time when the feuds ran high between the round-heads and 
cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, 
had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's 
lane ; upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of 
answering his question, called him a young Popish cur, and 
asked him who had made Anne a saint ! The boy, being in 
some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the 
way to Anne's lane ; but was called a prick-eared cur for 



Party-Spirit. 63 

his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told, 
that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be 
one after he was hanged. Upon this, says Sir P^oger, I did 
not think fit to repeat the former question, but going into 
every lane of the neighborhood, asked what they called the 
name of that lane. By which ingenious artifice he found 
out the place he inquired after, without giving offence to 
any party. Sir Eoger generally closes this narrative with 
reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country ; 
how they spoil good neighborhood, and make honest gentle- 
men hate one another ; besides that they manifestly tend to 
the prejudice of the land-tax, and the destruction of the 
game. 

There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than 
such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into 
two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and 
more averse to one another, than if they were actually two 
different nations. The effects of such a division are perni- 
cious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advan- 
tages which they give the common enemy, but to those 
private evils which they produce in the heart of almost 
every particular person. This influence is very fatal both 
to men's morals and their understandings ; it sinks the 
virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even com- 
mon sense. 

A furious party-spirit, when it rages in its full violence, 
exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and, when it is 
under its greatest restraints, naturally breaks out in false- 
hood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of 
justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancor, 
and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion, 
and humanity. 

Plutarch says very finely, that a man should not allow 
himself to hate even his enemies, because, says he, '' if you 
indulge this passion on some occasions, it will rise of itself 



54 Select Essays of Addison. 

in others ; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such 
a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon 
those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to 
you/^ I might here observe how admirably this precept of 
morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the 
passion itself, and not from its object) answers to that 
great rule Avhich was dictated to the world about an hun- 
dred years before this philosopher wrote ; but instead of 
that, I shall only take notice, with a real grief of heart, 
that the minds of many good men among us appear soured 
with party-principles, and alienated from one another in 
such a manner, as seems to me altogether inconsistent with 
the dictates either of reason or religion. Zeal for a public 
cause is apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous per- 
sons, to which the regard of their own private interest would 
never have betrayed them. 

If this party-spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it 
has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We 
often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and 
sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a 
different principle from the author. One who is actuated 
by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning 
either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a dif- 
ferent principle, is like an object seen in two different 
mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight 
and entire it may be in itself. For this reason there is 
scarce a person of any figure in England who does not go 
by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as 
light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a 
particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at 
present prevails amongst all ranks and degrees in the Brit- 
ish nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned 
societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now dis- 
tinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which 
they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued 



Party-Spirit 55 

upon the like considerations : an abusive scurrilous style 
passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party notions is 
called fine writing. 

There is one piece of sophistry practised by both sides, 
and that is the taking any scandalous story, that has been 
ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known 
undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. 
Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often 
refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous 
scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles 
granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they 
are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have 
laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that 
their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If 
this shameless practice of the present age endures much 
longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of 
action in good men. 

For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest 
men would enter into an association, for the support of one 
another against the endeavors of those whom they ought to 
look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they 
may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral 
forces, we should never see the worst of men in great 
figures of life, because they are useful to a party ; nor the 
best unregarded, because they are above practising those 
methods which would be grateful to their faction. We 
should then single every criminal out of the herd, and hunt 
him down, however formidable and overgrown he might 
appear : on the contrary, we should shelter distressed inno- 
cence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or 
ridicule, envy or defamation. In short, we should not any 
longer regard our felloAv-subjects as Whigs or Tories., but 
should make the man of merit our friend, and the villain 
our enemy. 



56 Select Essays of Addison. 

Spectator No. 126. Strictures on party-spirit continued. 

In my yesterday^s paper I proposed, that the honest men 
of all parties should enter into a kind of association for the 
defence of one another, and the confusion of their common 
enemies. As it is designed this neutral body should act 
with a regard to nothing but truth and equity, and divest 
themselves of the little heats and prepossessions that cleave 
to parties of all kinds, I have prepared for them the follow- 
ing form of an association, which may express their inten- 
tions in the most plain and simple manner. 

We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly declare, 
that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four ; and 
that we shall adjudge any man whatsoever to be our enemy who 
endeavors to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to 
maintain with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six 
is less than seven in all times and all places ; and that ten will not 
be more three years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly 
declare, that it is our resolution as long as we live to call black black, 
and white white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such per- 
sons that upon any day of the year shall call black white, or white 
black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes. 

Were there such a combination of honest men, who with- 
out any regard to places would endeavor to extirpate all 
such furious zealots as would sacrifice one-half of their 
country to the passion and interest of the other ; as also 
such infamous hypocrites, that are for promoting their own 
advantage under color of the public good ; with all the prof- 
ligate immoral retainers to each side, that have nothing 
to recommend them but an implicit submission to their 
leaders ; we should soon see that furious party-spirit extin- 
guished, which may in time expose us to the derision and 
contempt of all the nations about us. 

A member of this society, that would thus carefully 
employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing 
down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from 



Party-Spirit. 57 

those conspicuous stations of life to which they have been 
sometimes advanced, and all this without any regard to his 
private interest, would be no small benefactor to his coun- 
try. 

I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an account 
of a very active little animal, which I think he calls ichneu- 
mon, that makes it the whole business of his life to break 
the eggs af the crocodile, which he is always in search after. 
This instinct is the more remarkable, because the ichneumon 
never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor any other 
way finds his account in them. Were it not for the inces- 
sant labors of this industrious animal, Egypt, says the his- 
torian, would be over-run with crocodiles ; for the Egyptians 
are so far from destroying those pernicious creatures, that 
they worship them as gods. 

If we look into the behavior of ordinary partisans, wc 
shall find them far from resembling this disinterested ani- 
mal ; and rather acting after the example of the wild Tar- 
tars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the most 
extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking that 
upon his decease, the same talents, whatever posts they 
qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer. 

I do not know whether T have observed in any of my for- 
mer papers, that my friends Sir Eoger de Coverley and Sir 
Andrew Freeport are of different principles, the first of 
them inclined to the landed and the other to the monied 
interest. This humor is so moderate in each of them, that 
it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable raillery, which 
very often diverts the rest of the club. I find, however, 
that the Knight is a much stronger Tory in the country than 
in the town, which, as he has told me in my ear, is absolutely 
necessary for the keeping up his interest. In all our jour- 
ney from London to his house we did not so much as bait at 
a Whig inn : or if by chance the coach-man stopped at a 
wrong place, one of Sir Eoger's servants would ride up to 



68 Select Essays of Addison. 

his master full speed, and whisper to him that the master 
of the house was against such a one in the last election. 
This often betrayed us into hard beds and bad cheer ; for 
we were not so inquisitive about the inn as the inn-keeper ; 
and provided our landlord's principles were sound, did not 
take any notice of the staleness of his provisions. This I 
found still the more inconvenient, because the better the 
host was, the worse generally were his accommodations ; the 
fellow knowing very well that those who were his friends 
would take up with coarse diet and hard lodging. For these 
reasons, all the while I was upon the road I dreaded enter- 
ing into an house of any one that Sir Eoger had applauded 
for an honest man. 

Since my stay at Sir Eoger's in the country, I daily find 
more instances of this narrow party-humor. Being upon a 
bowling-green at a neighboring market-town the other day 
(for that is the place where the gentlemen of one side meet 
once a week), I observed a stranger among them of a better 
presence and genteeler behavior than ordinary; but was 
much surprised, that notwithstanding he was a very fair 
better, nobody would take him up. But upon inquiry I 
found, that he was one who had given a disagreeable vote 
in a former parliament, for which reason there was not a 
man upon that bowling-green who would have so much cor- 
respondence with him as to win his money of him. 

Among other instances of this nature, I must not omit 
one which concerns myself. Will Wimble was the other 
day relating several strange stories that he had picked up, 
nobody knows where, of a certain great man ; and upon my 
staring at him, as one that was surprised to hear such 
things in the country, which had never been so much as 
whispered in the town. Will stopped short in the thread of 
his discourse, and after dinner asked my friend Sir Eoger 
in his ear, if he were sure that I was not a fanatic. 

It gives me a serious concern to see such a spirit of dissen- 



Sir Roger and the Grypsies. 59 

sion in the country ; not only as it destroys virtue and com- 
mon sense, and renders us in a manner barbarians towards 
one another, but as it perpetuates our animosities, widens 
our breaches, and transmits our present passions and preju- 
dices to our posterity. For my own part, I am sometimes 
afraid that I discover the seeds of a civil war in these our 
divisions ; and therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first 
principles, the miseries and calamities of our children. 



Spectator No. 130. Sir Roger and the gypsies. 

As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my friend 
Sir Eoger, we saw at a little distance from us a troop of 
gypsies. Upon the first discovering of them, my friend was 
in some doubt whether he should not exert the Justice of the 
peace upon such a band of lawless vagrants ; but not having 
his clerk with him, who is a necessary counsellor on those 
occasions, and fearing that his poultry might fare the worse 
for it, he let the thought drop : but at the same time gave 
me a particular account of the mischiefs they do in the 
country, in stealing people's goods and spoiling their ser- 
vants. ^^If a stray piece of linen hangs upon an hedge," 
says Sir Eoger, " they are sure to have it ; if a hog loses his 
way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey ; 
our geese cannot live in peace for them : if a man prosecutes 
them with severity, his henroost is sure to pay for it. They 
generally straggle into these parts about this time of the 
year ; and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for 
husbands, that we do not expect to have any business done 
as it should be whilst they are in the country. I have an 
honest dairy-maid who crosses their hands with a piece of 
silver every summer, and never fails being promised the 
handsomest young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your 
friend the butler has been fool enough to be seduced by 



60 Select Essays of Addison. 

them ; and, though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a 
spoon every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts 
himself up in the pantry with an old gypsy for above half 
an hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweet-hearts are the things 
they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all 
those that apply themselves to them. You see now and then 
some handsome young jades among them : the girls have 
very often white teeth and black eyes.^^ 

Sir Eoger observing that I listened with great attention 
to his account of a people who were so entirely new to me, 
told me, that if I would they should tell us our fortunes. 

As I was very well pleased with the Knight's proposal, 
we rid up and communicated our hands to them. A Cas- 
sandra of the crew, after having examined my lines very 
diligently, told me, that I was a good woman's man, with 
some other particulars which I do not think proper to relate. 
My friend Sir Eoger alighted from his horse, and exposing 
his palm to two or three of them that stood by him, they 
crumpled it into all shapes, and diligently scanned every 
wrinkle that could be made in it ; when one of them who 
was elder and more sun-burnt than the rest, told him, that 
he had a widow in his line of life ; upon which the Knight 
cried, '' G-o, go, you are an idle baggage '' ; and at the same 
time smiled upon me. The gypsy finding he was not dis- 
pleased in his heart, told him after a farther inquiry into 
his hand, that his true love was constant, and that she 
should dream of him to-night : my old friend cried, '' Pish," 
and bid her go on. The gypsy told him that he was a 
bachelor, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer 
to somebody than he thought ; the Knight still repeated that 
she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. '' Ah master," 
says the gypsy, "that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty 
woman's heart ache ; you han't that simper about the mouth 
for nothing." The uncouth gibberish with which all this 
was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the 



The Spectator returns to London. 61 

more attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the money 
with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up 
again on his horse. 

As we were riding away, Sir Eoger told me, that he knew 
several sensible people who believed these gypsies now and 
then foretold very strange things ; and for half an hour 
together appeared more jocund than ordinary. In the 
height of his good humor, meeting a common beggar upon 
the road who was no conjuror, as he went to relieve him, 
he found his pocket was picked; that being a kind of 
palmistry at which this race of vermin are very dexterous. 



Spectator No. 131. T'he Spectator sees reasons why he had better 

return to town. 

It is usual for a man who loves country sports to preserve 
the game in his own grounds, and divert himself upon those 
that belong to his neighbor. My friend Sir Eoger generally 
goes two or three miles from his house, and gets into the 
frontiers of his estate, before he beats about in search of a 
hare or partridge, on purpose to spare his own fields, where 
he is always sure of finding diversion when the worst comes 
to the worst. By this means the breed about his house has 
time to increase and multiply ; besides that the sport is the 
more agreeable where the game is the harder to come at, 
and where it does not lie so thick as to produce any per- 
plexity or confusion in the pursuit. For these reasons the 
country gentleman, like the fox, seldom preys near his own 
home. 

In the same manner I have made a month's excursion out 
of the town, which is the great field of game for sportsmen 
of my species, to try my fortune in the country, where I 
have started several subjects, and hunted them down, with 
some pleasure to myself, and I hope to others. I am here 



62 Select Essays of Addison. 

forced to use a great deal of diligence before I can spring 
anything to my mind ; whereas in town, whilst I am follow- 
ing one character, it is ten to one but I am crossed in my 
way by another, and put up such a variety of odd creatures 
in both sexes, that they foil the scent of one another, and 
puzzle the chase. My greatest difficulty in the country is 
to find sport, and, in town, to choose it. In the meantime, 
as I have given a whole month's rest to the cities of London 
and Westminster, I promise myself abundance of new game 
upon my return thither. 

It is indeed high time for me to leave the country, since 
I find the whole neighborhood begin to grow very inquisi- 
tive after my name and character ; my love of solitude, 
taciturnity, and particular way of life having raised a great 
curiosity in all these parts. 

The notions which have been framed of me are various : 
some look upon me as very proud, some as very modest, 
and some as very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend 
the butler tells me, observing me very much alone, and 
extremely silent when I am in company, is afraid I have 
killed a man. The country people seem to suspect me 
for a conjuror; and, some of them hearing of the visit 
which I made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir 
Roger has brought down a cunning man with him, to cure 
the old woman, and free the country from her charms. So 
that the character which I go under in part of the neighbor- 
hood, is what they here call a '' white witch.'' 

A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, and is 
not of Sir Eoger's party, has, it seems, said twice or thrice 
at his table, that he wishes Sir Roger does not harbor a 
Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentlemen of 
the country would do very well to make me give some 
account of myself. 

On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are afraid 
the old Knight is imposed upon by a designing fellow, and 



Sir Roger in Town. 63 

as they have heard that he converses very promiscuously, 
when he is in town, do not know but he has brought down 
with him some discarded Whig, that is sullen and says 
nothing because he is out of place. 

Such is the variety of opinions which are here enter- 
tained of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected 
person, among some for a wizard, and among others for 
a murderer ; and all this for no other reason, that I can 
imagine, but because I do not hoot and holloa and make a 
noise. It is true, my friend Sir Eoger tells them, that it is 
my luay, and that I am only a philosopher ; but this will 
not satisfy them. They think there is more in me than he 
discovers, and that I do not hold my tongue for nothing. 

For these and other reasons I shall set out for London 
to-morrow, having found by experience that the country 
is not a place for a person of my temper, who does not 
love jollity, and what they call good neighborhood. A man 
that is out of humor when an unexpected guest breaks in 
upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to 
every chance-comer, that will be the master of his own 
time, and the pursuer of his own inclinations, makes but a 
very unsociable figure in this kind of life. I shall therefore 
retire into the town, if I may make use of that phrase, and 
get into the crowd again as fast as I can, in order to be 
alone. I can there raise what speculations I please upon 
others, without being observed myself, and at the same 
time enjoy all the advantages of company with all the 
privileges of solitude. 



Spectator No. 269. Su^ Roger in town. 

I was this morning surprised with a great knocking at the 
door, when my landlady's daughter came up to me, and 
told me that there was a man below desired to speak with 



64 Select Essays of Addison. 

me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told me it was 
a very grave elderly person, but that she did not know his 
name. I immediately went down to him, and found him to 
be the coachman of my worthy friend Sir Eoger de Coverley. 
He told me that his master came to town last night, and 
would be glad to take a turn with me in Gray's Inn Walks. 
As I was wondering in myself what had brought Sir Eoger 
to town, not having lately received any letter from him, he 
told me that his master was come up to get a sight of 
Prince Eugene, and that he desired I would immediately 
meet him. 

I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the old 
Knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having heard 
him say more than once in private discourse, that he looked 
upon Prince Eugenio (for so the Knight always calls him) 
to be a greater man than Scanderbeg. 

I was no sooner come into Gray's Inn Walks, but I heard 
my friend upon the terrace hemming twice or thrice to 
himself with great vigor, for he loves to clear his pipes in 
good air (to make use of his own phrase), and is not a lit- 
tle pleased with any one who takes notice of the strength 
which he still exerts in his morning hems. 

I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the good 
old man, who before he saw me was engaged in conversation 
with a beggar-man that had asked an alms of him. I could 
hear my friend chide him for not finding out some work ; 
but at the same time saw him put his hand in his pocket 
and give him six-pence. 

Our salutations were very hearty on both sides, consist- 
ing of many kind shakes of the hand, and several affection- 
ate looks which we cast upon one another. After which 
the Knight told me my good friend his chaplain was very 
well, and much at my service, and that the Sunday before 
he had made a most incomparable sermon out of Doctor 
Barrow. ^^I have left,'' says he, ^^all my affairs in his 



Sir Roger in Town. 65 

hands, and being willing to lay an obligation upon him, 
have deposited with him thirty marks, to be distributed 
among his poor parishioners.'' 

He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare of 
Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into his fob 
and presented me in his name with a tobacco- stopper, tell- 
ing me that Will had been busy all the beginning of the 
winter, in turning great quantities of them ; and that he 
made a present of one to every gentleman in the country 
who has good principles, and smokes. He added, that poor 
Will was at present under great tribulation, for that Tom 
Touchy had taken the law of him for cutting some hazel 
sticks out of one of his hedges. 

Among other pieces of news which the Knight brought 
from his country seat, he informed me that Moll White 
was dead; and that about a month after her death the 
wind was so very high, that it blew down the end of one of 
his barns. " But for my own part,'' says Sir Koger, " I do 
not think that the old woman had any hand in it." 

He afterwards fell into an account of the diversions 
which had passed in his house during the holidays ; for Sir 
Eoger, after the laudable custom of his ancestors, always 
keeps open house at Christmas. I learned from him that 
he had killed eight fat hogs for this season, that he had 
dealt about his chines very liberally amongst his neighbors, 
and that in particular he had sent a string of hogs-puddings 
with a pack of cards to every poor family in the parish. 
"I have often thought," says Sir Eoger, ^^it happens very 
well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. 
It is the most dead uncomfortable time of the year, when 
the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty 
and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christ- 
mas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor 
hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in 
my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my 



66 Select Essays of Addison. 

small beer, and set it a running for twelve days to every one 
that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a 
mince-pie upon the table, and am wonderfully pleased to 
see my tenants pass away a whole evening in playing their 
innocent tricks, and smutting one another. Our friend 
Will Wimble is as merry as any of them, and shows a thou- 
sand roguish tricks upon these occasions.^' 

I was very much delighted with the reflection of my old 
friend, w^hich carried so much goodness in it. He then 
launched out into the praise of the late Act of Parliament 
for securing the Church of England, and told me, wdth great 
satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect, 
for that a rigid Dissenter, who chanced to dine at his house 
on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully 
of his plum-porridge. 

After having dispatched all our country matters, Sir 
Roger made several inquiries concerning the club, and par- 
ticularly of his old antagonist. Sir Andrew Freeport. He 
asked me with a kind of a smile whether Sir Andrew had 
not taken the advantage of his absence to vent among them 
some of his republican doctrines ; but soon after, gathering 
up his countenance into a more than ordinary seriousness, 
^^Tell me truly,^' says he, ^- don't you think Sir Andrew had 
a hand in the Pope's Procession ? " — but without giving 
me time to answer him, *^Well, well,'^ says he, "I know 
you are a wary man, and do not care to talk of public 
matters.'' 

The Knight then asked me if I had seen Prince Eugenio, 
and made me promise to get him a stand in some convenient 
place where he might have a full sight of that extraordi- 
nary man, whose presence does so much honor to the Brit- 
ish nation. He dwelt very long on the praises of this 
great general, and I found that, since I was with him in 
the country, he had drawn many observations together out 
of his reading in Baker's Chronicle, and other authors, who 



Sir Roger in Westminster Ahhey, 67 

always lie in his hall window, which very much redound to 
the honor of this prince. 

Having passed away the greatest part of the morning in 
hearing the Knight's reflections, which were partly private, 
and partly political, he asked me if I would smoke a pipe 
with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the 
old man, I take delight in complying with every thing that 
is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the 
coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the 
eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself 
at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean 
pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax-candle, and 
the Supplement, with such an air of cheerfulness and good- 
humor, that all the boys in the coffee-room (who seemed to 
take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his 
several errands, insomuch that nobody else could come at a 
dish of tea, till the Knight had got all his conveniences 
about him. 



Spectator No. 329. Sir Roger visits Westminster Abbey, 

My friend Sir Eoger de Coverley told me t'other night 
that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster 
Abbe}^, in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious 
fancies. He told me, at the same time, that he observed I 
had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he 
should be glad to go and see them with me, not having vis- 
ited them since he had read history. I could not at first 
imagine how this came into the Knight's head, till I recol- 
lected that he had been very busy all last summer upon 
Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his 
disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to 
town. Accordingly, I promised to call upon him the next 
morning, that we might go together to the Abbey. 

I found the Knight under his butler's hands, who always 



68 Select Essays of Addison. 

shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for 
a glass of the Widow Trueby's water, which he told me he 
always drank before he went abroad. He recommended to 
me a dram of it at the same time with so much heartiness, 
that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got 
it down, I found it very unpalatable ; upon which the 
Knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told 
me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it 
was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel. 

I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted me 
with the virtues of it sooner ; but it was too late to com- 
plain, and I knew what he had done was out of good will. 
Sir Eoger told me, further, that he looked upon it to be 
very good for a man whilst he stayed in town, to keep off 
infection ; and that he got together a quantity of it upon 
the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic. When of a 
sudden turning short to one of his servants, who stood be- 
hind him, he bade him call a hackney-coach, and take care 
it was an elderly man that drove it. 

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, 
telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who did more 
good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the country; 
that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles 
of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all 
sorts of people : to which the Knight added, that she had a 
very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain 
have it a match between him and her ; " And truly," said 
Sir Eoger, '' if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not 
have done better.'' 

His discourse was broken off by his man telling him he 
had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast 
his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axle- 
tree was good ; upon the fellow telling him he would war- 
rant it, the Knight turned to me, told me he looked like an 
honest man, and went in without further ceremony. 



Si7' .Roger in Westminster Abbey. 69 

We had not gone far, when Sir Eoger, popping out his 
head, called the coachman down from his box, and upon 
his presenting himself at the window, asked him if he 
smoked : as I was considering what this would end in, he 
bade him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and 
take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material hap- 
pened in the remaining part of our journey till we were set 
down at the west end of the Abbey. 

As we went up the body of the church, the Knight pointed 
at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried 
out, ^^A brave man, I warrant him!'' Passing afterwards 
by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and 
cried, " Sir Cloudesley Shovel, a very gallant man ! '' As 
we stood before Busby's tomb, the Knight uttered himself 
again after the same manner, — "Dr. Busby — a great man ! 
he whipped my grandfather — a very great man! I should 
have gone to him myself if I had not been a blockhead- — a 
very great man ! " 

We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on 
the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our histo- 
rian's elbow, was very attentive to every thing he said, par- 
ticularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut 
off the King of Morocco's head. Among several other 
figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil 
upon his knees ; and, concluding them all to be great men, 
was conducted to the" figure which represents that martyr to 
good housewifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon 
our interpreter telling us that she was a maid of honor to 
Queen Elizabeth, the Knight was very inquisitive into her 
name and family ; and, after having regarded her finger for 
some time, " I wonder," says he, " that Sir Richard Baker 
has said nothing of her in his Chronicle." 

We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, 
where my old friend, after having heard that the stone 
underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought 



70 Select Essays of Addison. 

from Scotland, was called Jacob's Pillar, sat himself down 
in the chair ; and, looking like the figure of an old Gothic 
king, asked our interpreter what authority they had to say 
that Jacob had ever been in Scotland. The fellow, instead 
of returning him an answer, told him that he hoped his 
honor would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir Eoger a 
little ruffled upon being thus trepanned ; but, our guide not 
insisting upon his demand, the Knight soon recovered his 
good humor, and whispered in my ear that if Will Wimble 
were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard 
but he would get a tobacco-stopper out of one or t'other of 
them. 

Sir Eoger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward 
the Third's sword, and, leaning upon the pommel of it, gave 
us the whole history of the Black Prince ; concluding that, 
in Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward the Third was one 
of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English 
throne. 

We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb, upon 
which Sir Eoger acquainted us that he was the first who 
touched for the evil, and afterwards Henry the Fourth's, 
upon which he shook his head, and told us that there was 
fine reading in the casualties of that reign. 

Our conductor then pointed to that monument where 
there is the figure of one of our English kings without a 
head; and upon giving us to know that the head, which 
was of beaten silver, had been stolen away several years 
since, " Some Whig, PU warrant you," says Sir Eoger : " you 
ought to lock up your kings better ; they will carry off the 
body too if you don't take care." 

The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Eliza- 
oeth gave the Knight great opportunities of shining and of 
doing justice to Sir Eichard Baker, who, as our Knight ob- 
served with some surprise, had a great many kings in him 
whose monuments he had not seen in the Abbey. 



Sir Roger at the Theatre, 71 

For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the 
Knight show such an honest passion for the glory of his 
country, and such a respectful gratitude to the memory of 
its princes. 

I must not omit that the benevolence of my good old 
friend, which flows out towards every one he converses 
with, made him very kind to our interpreter, whom he 
looked upon as an extraordinary man; for which reason 
he shook him by the hand at parting, telling him that he 
should be very glad to see him at his lodgings in Norfolk 
Buildings, and talk over these matters with him more at 
leisure. 



Spectator No. 335. Sir Roger goes to the play. 

My friend Sir Eoger de Coverley, when we last met to- 
gether at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see 
the new tragedy with me, assuring me, at the same time, 
that he had not been at a play these twenty years. " The 
last I saw," said Sir Eoger, ^^ was the ^ Committee,' which I 
should not have gone to neither, had not I been told before- 
hand that it was a good Church of England comedy." He 
then proceeded to inquire of me who this distressed mother 
was, and, upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he 
told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when 
he was a school-boy, he had read his life at the end of the 
dictionary. My friend asked me, in the next place, if there 
would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the 
Mohocks should be abroad. ^•"' I assure you," says he, " I 
thought I had fallen into their hands last night, for I ob- 
served two or three lusty black men that followed me half 
way up Fleet Street, and mended their pace behind me in 
proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must 
know," continued the Knight with a smile, " I fancied they 
had a mind to hunt me, for I remember an honest gentleman 



72 Select Essays of Addison, 

ill my neighborhood who was served such a trick in King 
Charles the Second's time ; for which reason he has not ven- 
tured himself in town ever since. I might have shown them 
very good sport had this been their design ; for, as I am an 
old fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodged, and have 
played them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their 
lives before/' Sir Koger added that if these gentlemen 
had any such intention they did not succeed very well in 
it ; " for I threw them out/' says he, " at the end of Norfolk 
Street, where I doubled the corner and got shelter in my 
lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me. 
However," says the Knight, '' if Captain Sentry will make 
one with us to-morrow night, and if you will both of you 
call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the 
house before it is full, I will have my own coach in readi- 
ness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore 
wheels mended." 

The captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the 
appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had 
put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle 
of Steenkirk. Sir Soger's servants, and among the rest my 
old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves 
with good oaken plants to attend their master upon this 
occasion. When we had placed him in his coach, with my- 
self at his left hand, the captain before him, and his butler 
at the head of his footmen in the rear, we convoyed him 
in safety to the playhouse, where, after having marched up 
the entry in good order, the captain and I went in with him, 
and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house 
was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up 
and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind 
seasoned with humanity naturally feels at the sight of a 
multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, 
and partake of the same common entertainment. I could 
not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the 



Sir Roger at the Theatre. 73 

middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a 
tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the Knight 
told me that he did not believe the King of France himself 
had a better strut. I was, indeed, very attentive to my old 
friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of 
natural criticism ; and was well pleased to hear him, at the 
conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could 
not imagine how the play would end. One while he ap- 
peared much concerned for Andromache ; and a little while 
after as much for Hermione ; and was extremely puzzled to 
think what would become of Pyrrhus. 

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to 
her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that 
he was sure she would never have him ; to which he added, 
with a more than ordinary vehemence, '" You can't imagine. 
Sir, what 'tis to have to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus's 
threatening afterwards to leave her, the Knight shook his 
head, and muttered to himself, " Ay, do if you can." This 
part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at 
the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something 
else, he whispered me in my ear, '' These widows. Sir, are 
the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, 
^^you that are a critic, is the play according to your dramatic 
rules, as you call them ? Should your people in tragedy 
always talk to be understood ? Why, there is not a single 
sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of." 

The fourth act very luckily began before I had time 
to give the old gentleman an answer : " Well," says the 
Knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, "• I suppose 
we are now to see Hector's ghost." He then renewed his 
attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the widow. 
He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, 
whom at his first entering he took for Astyanax ; but 
quickly set himself right in that particular, though, at the 
same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have 



74 Select Essays of Addison. 

seen the little hoj, ^^ who/^ says he, "must needs be a very 
fine child by the account that is given of him/' Upon 
Hermione's going off with a menace to Pj^rrhus, the audience 
gave a loud clap, to which Sir Eoger added, " On my word, 
a notable young baggage ! '' 

As there was a very remarkable silence and stiffness in 
the audience during the whole action, it was natural for 
them to take the opportunity of these intervals between 
the acts to express their opinion of the players and of their 
respective parts. Sir Eoger hearing a cluster of them praise 
Orestes, struck in with them, and told them that he thought 
his friend Py lades was a very sensible man ; as they were 
afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Eoger put in a second 
time : "And let me tell you,'' says he, "though he speaks 
but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any 
of them." Captain Sentry seeing two or three wags, who 
sat near us, lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Eoger, 
and fearing lest they should smoke the Knight, plucked 
him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, that 
lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The Knight was 
wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives 
of Pyrrhus's death, and at the conclusion of it, told me 
it was such a bloody piece of work that he was glad it was 
not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his 
raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took 
occasion to moralize (in his wa}^) upon an evil conscience, 
adding, that Orestes, in his madness, looked as if he saw 
something. 

As we were the first that came into the house, so we were 
the last that went out of it ; being resolved to have a clear 
passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture 
among the jostling of the crowd. Sir Eoger went out fully 
satisfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his 
lodging in the same manner that we brought him to the 
playhouse ; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only 



Sir Roger at Vauxhall Grardens, lb 

with the performance of the excellent piece which had been 
presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to 
the old man. 



Spectator No. 383. Sir Roger and the Spectator go hy ivater to 
Vauxhall Gardens, 

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a sub- 
ject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregu- 
lar bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of 
it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher 
was at home. The child who went to the door answered 
very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately 
recollected that it was my good friend Sir Eoger's voice ; 
and that I had promised to go with him on the water to 
Spring Gardens, in case it proved a good evening. The 
Knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of 
the stair-case, but told me that if I was speculating he 
would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming 
down, I found all the children of the family got about my 
old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable 
prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him, being 
mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the 
head, and bidding him be a good child, and mind his book. 

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs, but we 
were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us 
their respective services. Sir Eoger, after having looked 
about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, 
and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. 
As we were walking towards it, ^^You must know,'' says 
Sir Eoger, ^^ I never make use of any body to row me, that 
has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate 
him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest 
man that has been wounded in the Queen's service. If I 



76 Select Essays of Addison, 

was a lord or a bishop^ and kept a barge, I would not put a 
fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.'^ 

My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed 
the boat with his coachman, who being a very sober man, 
always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the 
best of our way for Vauxhall. Sir Eoger obliged the water- 
man to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that 
he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which 
passed in that glorious action, the Knight, in the triumph of 
his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the 
British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three 
Frenchmen; that the Thames was the noblest river in 
Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work 
than any of the seven wonders of the world ; with many 
other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart 
of a true Englishman. 

After some short pause, the old Knight turning about his 
head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great Metrop- 
olis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with 
churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this 
side Temple Bar. '' A most heathenish sight ! ^' says Sir 
Eoger ; ^' there is no religion at this end of the town. The 
fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect ; but 
church work is slow, church work is slow ! '^ 

I do not remember I have any where mentioned, in Sir 
Soger's character, his custom of saluting every body that 
passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This 
the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, 
though at the same time it renders him so popular among 
all his country neighbors, that it is thought to have gone a 
good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire. 
He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in town, 
when he meets with any one in his morning or evening 
walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us 
upon the water ; but to the Knight's great surprise, as he 



Sir Roger at Vauxhall Grardens. 77 

gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little 
before our landing, one of them, instead of returning the 
civility, asked us, what queer old put we had in the boat, 
with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger 
seemed a little shocked at first, but at length, assuming a 
face of magistracy, told us that if he were a Middlesex jus- 
tice, he would make such vagrants know that Her Majesty's 
subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land. 

We were now arrived at Spring Gardens, which is exquis- 
itely pleasant at this time of the year. When I considered 
the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of 
birds that sang upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people 
that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the 
place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Eoger told me 
it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the 
country, which his chaplain used to call an aviary of night- 
ingales. "You must understand," says the Knight, "there 
is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much 
as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator ! the many moon- 
light nights that I have walked by myself, and thought on 
the Widow by the music of the nightingale ! '^ He here 
fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, 
when a mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap 
upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bot- 
tle of mead with her. But the Knight being startled at so 
unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted 
in his thoughts of the Widow, told her she was a wanton 
baggage, and bid her go about her business. 

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a 
slice of hung beef. When we had done eating ourselves, 
the Knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the 
remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I per- 
ceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the 
message, and was going to be saucy ; upon which I ratified 
the Knight's commands with a peremptory look. 



78 Select Essays of Addison. 

Spectator No. 517. The death of Sir Roger, 

We last night received a piece of ill news at our club, 
which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question 
not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hear- 
ing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir Eoger 
de Coverley is dead. He departed this life at his house in 
the country, after a few weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Free- 
port has a letter from one of his correspondents in those 
parts, that informs him the old man caught a cold at the 
county-sessions, a's he was very warmly promoting an ad- 
dress of his own penning, in which he succeeded according 
to his wishes. But this particular comes from a Whig jus- 
tice of peace, who was always Sir Eoger's enemy and antag- 
onist. I have letters both from the chaplain and Captain 
Sentry w^hich mention nothing of it, but are filled with 
many particulars to the honor of the good old man. I 
have likewise a letter from the butler, who took so much 
care of me last summer when I was at the Knight's house. 
As my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity of his 
heart, several circumstances the others have passed over in 
silence, I shall give my reader a copy of his letter, without 
any alteration or diminution. 

Honored Sir, 

Knowing that you was my old master's good friend, I could not 
forbear sending you the melancholy news of h^s death, which has 
afflicted the whole country, as well as his poor servants, who loved 
him, I may say, better than we did our lives. I am afraid he caught 
his death the last county-sessions, where he would go to'see justice 
done to a poor widow woman and her fatherless children, that had 
been wronged by a neighboring gentleman ; for you know. Sir, my 
good master was always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming 
home, the first complaint he made was, that he had lost his roast-beef 
stomach, not being able to touch a sirloiD, which was served up ac- 
cording to custom ; and you know he used to take great delight in it. 
From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a 



The Death of Sir Roger, 79 

good heart to the last. Indeed we were once in great hope of his 
recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow 
lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his life ; but 
this only proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to this 
lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of sil- 
ver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady his 
mother; he has bequeathed the fine white gelding, that he used to 
ride a hunting upon, to his chaplain, because he thought he would be 
kind to him, and has left you all his books. He has, moreover, be- 
queathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about 
it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourn- 
ing, to every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every 
woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him 
take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, 
whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most 
of us are grown gray-headed in our dear master's service, he has left 
us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon, 
the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more 
in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge, and it is peremp- 
torily said in the parish that he has left money to build a steeple to 
the church ; for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived 
two years longer, Coverley Church should have a steeple to it. The 
chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end, and never 
speaks of him without tears. He was buried, according to his own 
directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his 
father. Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and 
the pall held up by six of the quorum : the whole parish followed the 
corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits, the men in 
frieze, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's 
nephew, has taken possession of the hall-house and the whole estate. 
When my old master saw him a little before his death he shook him 
by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to 
him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several 
legacies, and the gifts of charity which he told him he had left as quit- 
rents upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, 
though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master 
loved, and shows great kindnesses to the old house-dog, that you know 
my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to j^our heart to 
have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my mas- 
ter's death. He has never joyed himself since ; no more has any of 



80 Select Essays of Addison, 

us. 'Twas the melanclioliest day for the poor people that ever hap- 
pened in Worcestershire. This is all from, 

Honored Sir, your most sorrowful Servant, 

Edward Biscuit. 

P.S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book 
which comes up to you by the carrier should be given to Sir Andrew 
Freeport, in his name. 

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of 
writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that 
upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. 
Sir Andrew opening the book, found it to be a collection of 
Acts of Parliament. There was in particular the Act of 
Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Eoger's 
own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or 
three points, which he had disputed with Sir Eoger the last 
time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have 
been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the 
sight of the old man's handwriting burst into tears and 
put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs us, 
that the Knight has left rings and mourning for every one 
in the club. 



NOTES. 

P. 18. he is pleasant upon any of them. The meaning of 
'' pleasant '' as here used is not given in Webster, but may- 
be easily inferred. Consider the noun, 2^^^^^<^'^i'^y' 

P. 19. This cast of mind, etc. The young reader must 
learn betimes to make his account with the peculiarities of 
the Addisonian syntax, and must recognize that in many 
points usage has changed since the early years of the 
eighteenth century. 

P. 22. took off the dress he was in; i.e., raised him from 
the condition of servant. 

P. 24. discovered. Do not misinterpret this word. It is 
no longer used in just this sense. 

P. 41. Spectator No. 116, though written by Budgell, is 
wholly in the Addisonian vein. Budgell had successfully 
caught the style of his master. Boswell reports Johnson as 
saying that '^Addison wrote BudgelPs papers, or at least 
mended them so much that he made them almost his own.'^ 

P. 46. I believe in general, etc. Bemember it is the Spec- 
tator, and not Addison, that is speaking. Addison chooses 
not to let the Spectator boldly disavow a belief in witch- 
craft. Addison's own disbelief in it is abundantly inferable 
from the spiiit of this very paper. It becomes interesting 
to consider whether in 1711 belief in witchcraft was gener- 
ally entertained by educated men. Eecall the date of the 
latest outbreak of the delusion in ISTew England. Ascertain 
from any history of witchcraft, or from the article on this 
subject in the Encyclo. Brit., when the last witch-trials 
were held in England. See Knight's Popular History, 
Vol. v., p. 430. 

P. 49. a yeoman. It is impossible for an American to 
appreciate fully the connotations of this purely English 
word without considerable reading. Besides looking up 
the definitions in the dictionaries, read, also, the chapter 
on the Yeomen, in Boutmy's English Constitution. 

within the Game Act. A little reading will explain this. 

81 



82 Notes, 

See, e.g., the last paragraph of Chap. IV., Vol. YIII., of 
Knight's History, and the passage from Blackstone there 
quoted. 

P. 57. I remember to have read. Look up the facts about 
the ichneumon, and see if he is as disinterested an animal 
as Diodorus represents him. 

P. 59. Spectator No. 130. The authorits^ on the Gypsies 
is George Borrow, whose books are all pecidiarly interest- 
ing. In the introduction to his Gypsies of Spain is a short, 
readable account of the English Gypsies. 

P. 63. discovers. See note to p. 24. 

P. 6-4. Prince Eugene. See Knight's History, opening of 
Chap. XXV.. Vol. V. 

P. 66. smutting one another. See The Deserted Village, 
line 27. 

the late Act of Parliament. This was the law against Oc- 
casional Conformitv. passed in 1711. See the histories, or 
Encyclo. Brit., VoL VIIL, pp. 353, 354. 

the Pope's Procession. See Knight's History, Vol. V., 
p. 377. 

Baker's Chronicle. See article on Sir Kichard Baker, in 
Encyclo. Brit. 

P. 69. the lord -who had cut off, etc. ; that martyr to good 
housewifery, etc. See Hare's Walks in London, II., 257. 

the two coronation chairs, ^ee Hare, II., 303. 

P. 70. one of our English kings without a head. See Hare, 
XL, pp. 300-302. 

P. 71. 'the Committee,' a play by Sir Eobert HoTvard, one 
of the minor comic dramatists of the Kestoration. 

this distressed mother. The Distressed Mother was a play 
by Ambrose Philips, founded on Kacine's tragedy of Andro- 
maque. 

the Mohocks. See Ashton's Social Life in the Eeign of 
Queen Anne. 

P. 75. Vauxhall Gardens. See Hare's Walks, II., 422. 

P. 76. La Hogue. See Macaulay's History, Chap. XVIII. 

The fifty new churches. Parliament had just voted to 
build fifty churches in the city. 



ENGLISH. 



Orations and Arguments 

Edited by Professor C. B. Bradley, University of California. i2mo, 
cloth, 385 pages. Price, ^i.oo. 

The following speeches are contained in the book : — 
Burke : Webster : 

On Conciliation with the Col- The Reply to Hayne. 

onies, and Speech before the Elec- Macaulay • 
tors at Bristol. q„ ^^^ '^^^^^^ g;jl ^^ ^g 

Chatham: Calhoun: 

On American Affairs. r\ ^.-u c^ r\ *.• 

On the Slavery Question. 
Erskine: c: ,„. 

Seward : 
In the Stockdale Case. r\ ^u j -ui r- a- ^ 

On the Irrepressible Conflict. 
Lincoln : 

The Gettysburg Address. 

IN making this selection, the test applied to each speech was 
that it should be in itself memorable, attaining its distinc- 
tion through the essential qualities of nobility and force of ideas, 
and that it should be, in topic, so related to the great thoughts, 
memories, or problems of our own time as to have for us still an 
inherent and vital interest. 

The speeches thus chosen have been printed from the best 
available texts, without change, save that the spelling has been 
made uniform throughout, and that three of the speeches — 
those of Webster, Calhoun, and Seward — have been shortened 
somewhat by the omission of matters of merely temporal or 
local interest. The omitted portions have been summarized for 
the reader, whenever they bear upon the main argument. 

The Notes aim to furnish the reader with whatever help is 
necessary to the proper appreciation of the speeches ; to avoid 
bewildering him with mere subtleties and display of erudition ; 
and to encourage in him habits of self-help and familiarity wdth 
sources of information. 

A special feature of this part of the work is a sketch of the 
English Constitution and Government, intended as a general 
introduction to the English speeches. 

The collection includes material enough to permit of a varied 
selection for the use of successive classes in the schools. 



ENGLISH. 



Studies in English Composition 

By Harriet C. Keeler, High School, Cleveland. Ohio, and Emma 
C. Davis, Cleveland, Ohio. i2mo, cloth, 210 pages. Price, 80 cents. 

THIS book is the outgrowth of experience in teaching compo- 
sition, and the lessons which it contains have all borne the 
actual test of the class-room. Intended to meet the wants of 
those schools which have composition as a weekly exercise in 
their course of study, it contains an orderly succession of topics 
adapted to the age and development of high school pupils, to- 
gether with such lessons in language and rhetoric as are of con- 
stant application in class exercises. 

The authors believe that too much attention cannot be given 
to supplying young writers with good models, which not only 
indicate what is expected, and serve as an ideal toward which 
to work, but stimulate and encourage the learner in his first 
efforts. For this reason numerous examples of good writing 
have been given, and many more have been suggested. 

The primal idea of the book is that the pupil learns to wTite 
by writing ; and therefore that it is of more importance to get 
him to write than to prevent his making mistakes in writing. 
Consequently, the pupil is set to writing at the very outset ; the 
idea of producing something is kept constantly uppermost, and 
the function of criticism is reserved until after something has 
been done which may be criticised. 

J. W. Steams, Professor of Pedagogy, University of Wisconsin: It strikes 
me that the author of your "Studies in English Composition" touches 
the gravest defect in school composition v^'ork when she writes in her pref- 
ace : " One may as well grasp a sea-anemone, and expect it to show its 
beauty, as ask a child to write from his own experience when he expects 
every sentence to be dislocated in order to be improved." In order to 
improve the beauty of the body, we drive out the soul m our extreme for- 
mal criticisms of school compositions. She has made a book which 
teaches children to write by getting them to WTite often and freely ; and if 
used with the spirit which has presided over the making of it. it will prove 
a most effective instrument for the reform of school composition work. 

Albert G. Owen, Superintendent, Afton, Iowa: It is an excellent text. I 
am highly pleased with it. The best of the kind I have yet seen. 



ENGLISH. 



DeQuincey's Essays on Style, Rhetoric, 
and Language 

Edited by Professor Fred N. Scott, University of Michigan. i2mo, 
276 pages. Price, 60 cents. 

THE essays selected are those which deal directly with the 
theory of literature. The appendix contains such passages 
from DeQuincey's other writings as will be of most assistance 
to the student. The introduction and notes are intended to 
re-enforce, not to forestall, research. 

Principles of Success in Literature 

By George Henry Lewes. Edited with Introduction and Notes by 
Professor Fred N. Scott. i2mo, 159 pages. Price, 50 cents. 

THE object of reprinting this admirable little treatise on Ht- 
erature is to make it available for classes in rhetoric and 
literary criticism. Scarcely any other work will be found so 
thoroughly sound in principles, and so suggestive and inspiring. 
The value of the present edition is greatly increased by the 
excellent introduction by Professor Scott, and by a full index, 
which adds much to its convenience. 

Professor 0. B. Clarke, Indiana University. Blooyniyigton : Your reprint of 
Lewes's articles on " The Principles of Success in Literature *' puts an- 
other sharp and serviceable tool into the hands of the teacher and student 
of the art of composition. Professor Scott, as well as yourselves, deserves 
the thanks of all who car€ for truth and force in working. 

Spencer's Pliilosophy of Style ^"^ Wrighfs 
Essay on Style 

Edited by Professor Fred N. Scott. i2mo, 92 pages. Price, 45 cents. 

THE plan has been followed of providing a biographical and 
critical introduction, an index, and a few notes, — the latter 
designed to provoke discussion or to furnish clews for further 
investigation. 



ENGLISH. 



From Milton to Tennyson 

Masterpieces of English Poetry. Edited by L. Du Pont Syle, Uni- 
versity of California. i2mo, cloth, 480 pages. Price, $1.00. 

IN this work the editor has endeavored to bring together within 
the compass of a moderate-sized volume as much narrative, 
descriptive, and lyric verse as a student may reasonably be re- 
quired to read critically for entrance to college. From the 
nineteen poets represented, only such masterpieces have been 
selected as are within the range of the understanding and the 
sympathy of the high school student. Each masterpiece is 
given complete, except for pedagogical reasons in the cases of 
Thomson, Cowper, Byron, and Browning. Exigencies of space 
have compelled the editor reluctantly to omit Scott from this 
volume. The copyright laws, of course, exclude American poets 
from the scope of this work. 

The low price of the book, together with its strong and attrac- 
tive binding, make it especially desirable for those teachers who 
read with their classes even a small part of the poems it contains. 

President D. S. Jordan, Leland Stanford, Jr., University, Cal. : I have re- 
ceived the copy of Mr. Syle's book, " From Milton to Tennyson," and have 
looked it over with a great deal of interest. It seems to be an excellent 
work for the purpose. The selections seem well adapted to high school 
use, and the notes are wisely chosen and well stated. 

Professor Henry A. Beers, Yale University : The notes are helpful and 
suggestive. What is more, — and what is unusual in text-book annota-' 
tions, — they are interesting and make very good reading ; not at all school- 
masterish, but really literary in their taste and discernment of nice points. 

Professor Elmer E. Wentworth, Vassar College: It is a most attractive 
book in appearance outward and inward, the selections, satisfactory and 
just, the notes excellent. In schools where less time is given than in ours, 
no other book known to me, me jtidice, will be so good. I wish to com- 
mend the notes again. 

Wm. E. Griffis, Ithaca, N.Y. • The whole work shows independent research 
as well as refined taste and a repose of judgment tnat is admirable. The 
selected pieces are not overburdened with critical notes, while the sugges- 
tions for comparison and criticism, to be made by the student himself, are 
very valuable. 



10 ENGLISH. 



Select Essays of Macaulay 

Edited by Samuel Thurber, Girls' High School, Boston. i2mo, 
205 pages ; cloth, 70 cents ; boards, 50 cents. 

THIS selection comprises the essays on Milton, Bunyan, 
Johnson, Goldsmith, and Madame D'Arblay, thus giv- 
ing illustrations both of Macaulay's earlier and of his later 
style. It aims to put into the hands of high school pupils speci- 
mens of English prose that shall be eminently interesting to 
read and study in class, and which shall serve as models of clear 
and vigorous writing. 

The subjects of the essays are such as to bring them into 
close relation with the study of general English literature. 

The annotation is intended to serve as a guide and stimulus to 
research rather than as a substitute for research. The notes, 
therefore, are few in number. Only when an allusion of Macau- 
lay is decidedly difficult to verify does the editor give the result 
of his own investigations. In all other cases he leads the pupil 
to make investigation for himself, believing that a good method 
in English, as in other studies, should leave as much free play 
as possible to the activity of the learner. 

Historical Essays of Macaulay 

Edited by Samuel Thurber. i2mo, cloth, 394 pages. Price, 80 cents. 

THIS selection includes the essays on Lord Clive, Warren 
Hastings, and both those on the Earl of Chatham. The 
text in each case is given entire. A map of India, giving the 
location of places named in the essays, iS included. 

The notes are intended to help the pupil to help himself. 
They do not attempt to take the place of dictionary, encyclo- 
paedia, and such histories as are within the reach of ordinary 
students in academies or high schools. When an allusion is not 
easily understood, a note briefly explains it, or at least indicates 
where an explanation may be found. In other cases the pupil 
is expected to rely on his own efforts, and on such assistance as 
his teacher may think wise to give. 



ENGLISH. 11 



Select Essays of Addison 

With Macaulay's Essay on Addison. Edited by Samuel Thurber, 
i2mo, 320 pages ; cloth, 80 cents ; boards, 50 cents. 

THE purpose of this selection is to interest young students in 
Addison as a moral teacher, a painter of character, a hu- 
morist, and as a writer of elegant English. Hence the editor 
has aimed to bring together such papers from the Spectator, the 
Tatler, the Guardia7i, and the Freeholder as will prove most 
readable to youth of high school age, and at the same time give 
something like an adequate idea of the richness of Addison's 
vein. The De Coverley papers are of course all included. 
Papers describing eighteenth-century life and manners, espe- 
cially such as best exhibit the writer in his mood of playful satire, 
have been drawn upon as peculiarly illustrating the Addisonian 
humor. The tales and allegories, as well as the graver moraliz- 
ings, have due representation, and the beautiful hyiniis are all 
given. 

Professor Henry S. Pancoast, Philadelphia : I am dehghted to find that 
you are continuing the work so well begun in the Macaulay. I read the 
Introduction with much interest, and with a fresh sense of the importance 
and value of the method of teaching you are working to advance. 

William C. Collar, Principal of Latin School^ Roxbury^ Mass. : I suppose 
the best thing I can say is that your book will go into our list of books to 
be read, and that it will have a permanent place in my school. I believe 
with all my heart in your principles of annotation, and think you are doing 
a great work for the schools. 

Macaulay's Essays on Milton and Addi- 
son 

i2mo, boards. Price, 30 cents. 

THESE are reprinted from Mr. Thurber's Select Essays of 
Macaulay and Select Essays of Addison, without any 
change in the numbering of the pages. Strongly and attrac- 
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cheapest and best edition of these two essays for school use. 



12 ENGLISH. 



Irving's Sketch-Book 



With notes by Professor Elmer E. Wentworth, Vassar College. 
i2mo, cloth, 426 pages. Price, 60 cents. 

THIS is the best and cheapest edition of the complete Sketch- 
Book now before the public. The paper and press-work 
are excellent, and the binding is strong and handsome. In his 
notes the editor has endeavored to stimulate, not supersede, 
thought on the part of the pupil, and so to prepare him to read 
with profit and enjoyment other literary masterpieces. What 
success has been attained in this direction may be estimated 
from the following extracts from letters recently received from 
those who have examined the book. 

Professor Wm. Lyon Phelps, New Havr.n, Conn. : Please accept my 
thanks for your handsome edition of the Sketch-Book, which seems to 
me surprisingly cheap in price for such a book. 

Professor Chas. F. Richardson, Dartmouth College^ Hanover, N.H. : 
I thank you for sending me Mr. Wentworth's well-annotated edition of 
Irving's Sketch-Book, a pleasure to the eye and the hand, and sure to 
aid in the enjoyment of an American classic. 

Professor Wm. H. Brown, Johns Hopkins University : I have to thank you 
for a copy of your very neat edition of Irving's classic Sketch-Book. I 
shall call the attention of my classes to it and its exceeding cheapness. 

Irving H. Upton, Principal of High School, Portsmouth, N.H. : I examined 
it with a great deal of pleasure arising from two points in particular. 
First, from the remarkable execution of the book mechanically and typo- 
graphically; and, secondly, because of the judicious absence of useless notes. 

Professor T. W. Hunt, Princeton College, N.J. : Thanks for Wentworth's 
neat and convenient edition of the Sketch-Book. Had I seen it earlier, I 
should have inserted it in our catalogue for 1 803-1 894. 

Professor Wm. E. Smyser, De Pauw University, Greencastle, Ind.: I am 
very much pleased with the book in every particular. 

Professor Edward A. Allen, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.: 
Please accept my thanks for a copy of Wentworth's Irving's Sketch- 
Book, which strikes me as the best school edition I have seen. 

Professor 0. B. Clark, Rip07i College, Ripon, Wis. : Permit me to congratu- 
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the scholarly taste, modest reserve, and encouraging suggestiveness of the 
notes. Reading and study are made to beget reading and study, and the 
appetite will surely grow with what it feeds on. 



ENGLISH. 13 



A Drill Book in English 

Compiled by George E. Gay, Principal of High School, Maiden, Mass. 
i2mo, boards. Price, 45 cents. 

THIS book is designed for the use of such pupils as have pre- 
viously learned the substance of the rules which it contains. 
It does not aim to give all the principles of the language, but 
emphasizes those which are most frequently violated. It will be 
warmly w^elcomed by those teachers who are endeavoring in a 
practical way to teach their pupils the use of correct English. 
Such teachers recognize the fact that pupils use many incorrect 
forms of expression, both in speaking and in writing, and they 
have learned by experience that the way to make the vices of a 
language hateful is to place them side by side with their con- 
trasting virtues. It contains, in brief form, rules for spelling, 
punctuation, capitalization, and the more important principles 
of grammar and rhetoric. Abundant exercises for practice are 
given ; and these are arranged on pages with wide margin, so 
that the w^ork of correction can be done with the least expendi- 
ture of time and labor. 

A separate edition, which serves as a key to the exercises, is 
published for the use of teachers. 

J. G. Croswell, Principal of the Brearley School^ New York City : I have 
examined Gay's Drill Book in English, and have ordered it at once. It is 
a very valuable addition to the apparatus of the teacher. 

Edwin H. Cutler, Classical School^ Newtoji. Mass. : There is great occasion 
in our schools for a book of this kind ; and I am satisfied from an exam- 
ination of the work that it will prove highly serviceable. 

William E. Frost, Principal of Westford Academy^ Westford, Mass. : I like 
it very much, for it supplies material with which a practical teacher can 
really drill classes effectually in the niceties of English expression. 

Daniel E. Owen, Thornto7i Academy^ Saco, Me.: It is the best thing in its 
line that I have ever seen. 

J. P. Marston, Principal of High School. Biddeford, Me. : Its plan is ad- 
mirable for obtaining good results in teaching English language. The 
principles are stated in such a form that pupils will forever hold them. 

A. F. Bechdolt, State University, Grand Forks, N. D. : I like it very much ; 
its examples are well selected, and there is an abundance of them. 



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Burke. 


On Conciliation with the Colonies. 


C. B. Bradley. 


Webster. 


Reply to Hayne. 






C. B. Bradley. 


Addison. 


De Coverley Papers. 






S. Thurber 


Carlyle. 


Essay on Bums. 






H. W. Boynton 


Macaulay 


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Essay on Milton. 
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